Paved Paradise
by CalliopeMused
Summary: Raven didn't instantly regain her age at The End of the fight against Trigon, but the most reclusive of the Teen Titans will be back to normal before anyone notices she's gone. Right? Unrepentant kid-fluff
1. Chapter 1

_The title comes from the song "Big Yellow Taxi."  
_

_The premise comes from The End: what if Raven hadn't conveniently turned back to her full-sized self after defeating Trigon? The Teen Titans have dealt with quite a lot in their time together, but this is an entirely new kind of fight. This time around, they're going to make sure Raven has the childhood she deserves. _

**Paved Paradise  
Chapter One: "You never get a second chance at a first impression."**

Cyborg looked between the miniature version of Raven and his teammates, hoping that somebody would have an idea, but they looked as confused as he did.

The Teen Titans had been able to make fast decisions about fighting Trigon, but they were good at fighting. They could even deal with prophecies and creepy warnings and the world having a hiccup with Raven at the center of the mess. In a true sign of the end of the world, Robin had worked with _Slade _to try getting things back to where they should be.

The Teen Titans weren't so confident when the city was magically better and the people were moving around again and there still was a problem. They had spent the better part of a day losing a fight against Trigon before Robin showed up with a tiny Raven. The mini-Titan had gone on to knock Trigon back through a giant glowing portal-thing, but even when the city looked completely fine she still looked about half of her usual size. She also looked just as lost as he felt.

Robin was frowning, Beast Boy was staring, and Starfire had already left the group. Before anyone else had the vaguest idea about what they should do, she had knelt on the pavement ten feet from Raven.

Starfire's voice was very soft, especially compared to her usual exuberance, but from her first words she had Raven's full attention. "Are you Raven of Azarath?"

Raven's eyes looked even wider when she nodded slowly. "I'm not dreaming?"

Starfire shook her head. "No, Raven, I fear that you are not. I am Koriand'r of Tamaran, called Starfire in your language. Will you accept our hospitality as we try to find what has happened? You have vanquished Trigon, and that is the mark of a great fighter. We would happily offer you a place to stay."

It was enough to break Cyborg's heart, more than anything in the last few days, because his friend was still trying to hide her emotions. Raven had a pretty good blank mask in place when she couldn't be more than ten, but he had known her for two years now, and he had watched her at her sixteenth birthday party. He could read the nervousness and the uncertainty warring with shy disbelief that Starfire was looking at her that way.

It made Cyborg want to sit every last one of Raven's guardians down to talk about decent childhoods. When Raven's eyes flicked his way, he belatedly remembered that this little girl didn't know who he was just yet, and that the last thing she needed was a giant angry half-metal black guy. He used a couple tricks she had taught him to calm down quickly, and she looked back at Starfire. He felt only moderately better when he noticed that she was sneaking glances at Beast Boy and Robin, too. Raven had mentioned once that it still was hard for her to 'turn off' her empathy, and easier to just walk away from intense situations. He was about to mention it to Robin and Beast Boy, but Starfire settled back on her heels with the distinct air of someone about to lay down a royal flush when the other poker players had been impressed with a full house.

"Raven." Starfire's voice was calm and coaxing, and so warm that it tempted Cyborg into moving a little closer. She was facing Raven, and he could just imagine the look that had to be in her eyes. Raven visibly wavered with the intensity of it.

"I understand that there is no reason for you to trust me, and I know that it is very wise of you to be careful of strangers. Still, I hope that you will be able to look at my emotions and realize that I would never allow you to come to harm. I would swear this to Azar herself."

Raven didn't seem to realize that she had taken two small steps forward. Her eyes were fixed on Starfire, and the wariness was slowly fading away to leave a cautious hope. "You know about Azar?"

"I know many things about Azarath, and perhaps the first among them is that you are Arella's gifted daughter, and that the monks quietly speak of how remarkable it is for a child to embrace their teachings so fully. May I ask your age?"

Raven flushed faintly, but he could see the first traces of a smile developing. "I'm eight."

"That is why you have not heard, then. They hope to let you to continue with such a long success in controlling your emotions, and they plan to tell you when you turn twelve. I, however, am bound by no such rules, and I think that you have done immensely well. You have defeated Trigon, Raven, and you will know it. Look within yourself- he has no further claim on you." Starfire's fingers were crossed behind her back, but Cyborg was paying much more attention to Raven as her eyes closed.

A few seconds later, Raven's eyes opened as wide as he had seen them yet, and she was looking at Starfire with an entirely novel expression. Cyborg didn't know what to make of it, but Starfire held her arms forward and apart. Raven stumbled forward, and didn't make a single bit of protest when she was gathered into Starfire's arms.

Raven stayed a little stiff, and kept her arms at her sides, but her cheek was resting against Starfire's shoulders and she made no move to step away. When Starfire straightened, she brushed a strand of Raven's hair back, and the battle against Raven's reserve had been won.

The miniature version of his friend was looking at Starfire like she hung the stars, and when Starfire stood she had Raven's small hand clasped in hers. "Friend Raven and I shall fly back to the Tower now, if she will let me carry her."

Raven was nodding even as some other fraction of distance melted at the first pronouncement of 'friend.' That wasn't helping Cyborg's strong desire to line up every last monk in Azarath to watch a video recording of this scene, but he'd have time to be angry in just a few minutes. Right now, his careful, aloof friend that had almost died in some prophecy made about her birth was looking up at Starfire with open wonder.

Robin had the sense to agree instantly, but Beast Boy did one better. BB- who barely could be in the same room with Raven without doing something to tweak her tail- had turned his attention to Raven, leaving Starfire and Robin to decide that it would be for the best if no one knew that Raven was currently fun-sized.

"We'll come back a little later, after Starfire's had a chance to settle you in." Beast Boy didn't crouch or do anything else to make him closer to Raven's eye level, but he also kept enough space that she could look up at him without getting a crick in her neck. "We can bring whatever you want back for dinner. You kicked Trigon's butt, so you definitely get to have your favorites."

Raven bit her lip, and looked ready to close off all over again, but Beast Boy had long experience in the art of angering and appeasing his friend. Cyborg kept out of it, mostly, but he knew that BB and Rae were getting better about not trashing the common room.

"I'll pick something that I really think you'll like, then," Beast Boy said.

Raven nodded, looking shy all over again. Beast Boy was unperturbed. "We'll do introductions later, but this is all the people you'll have to deal with for a while. Tell Starfire to call us if you get hungry before we're back."

Starfire and Robin had negotiated the police briefing already. Robin usually handled that without much input, but Starfire had ended up as the only teammate besides Raven with a good understanding about Azarath, if not Metrion and Xinthos. Cyborg and Beast Boy knew about Nevermore, and a little about Trigon, and Robin had heard a few other things, but this time Starfire had the information they needed while Raven was without most of her memories.

Finding a way to turn her back wasn't going to be fun. She was their researcher for all things magical, but she'd probably forgive him for flipping through her safe shelf of books if it resulted in getting her height back.

He waited for Starfire to fly away, with a blushing Raven held gently on a hip, before looking to his other two teammates. He let himself be angry with Azar or Arella or whoever else was at fault, this time, but that wasn't the only question. "Didn't know you were good with kids, B."

Beast Boy shrugged uncomfortably. "Doom Patrol thing. Rita did the Starfire thing, when I showed up, and Negative Man was... it helps, that's all."

Cyborg didn't need a bigger hint than that to drop it. "Do you want to handle dinner? It's your turn to get the groceries, anyway, and Rob and I are probably going to give ourselves headaches figuring out if we need to explain this to the chief. I'll pick you up from the store on our way back, unless you want to pterydactyl the groceries home again."

That prompted a grin, at least. It was weird enough having a half-size Raven, they didn't need a gloomy Beast Boy on top of that. "Just that one time, and it was completely worth the return trip. The one bag I dropped ended up right on the front porch of a homeless shelter, and they didn't care if the new bath towels dropped out of the sky."

Robin still had the little brow-furrow, but Cyborg wasn't cutting short joke-time for that. Robin seemed to think it was useless joking around, but it was the time-honored way of making sure that Beast Boy was alright. The kid didn't admit to problems, and it didn't help that Robin had flipped his lid and refused to apologize when Beast Boy had been forced to talk about the Beast thing, but BB would usually slip a hint into conversation if he felt chatty enough.

Cyborg wasn't about to explain any of that, and wouldn't have much hope in Robin's abilities to function as somebody other than Batman Lite until he and Starfire did something. It was getting ridiculous. Starfire liked Robin, Robin liked Starfire, and yet absolutely nothing was happening. It made Cyborg want to have hair to rip out, but he had to admit it could be worse. Raven had fled into the garage several times to get away from the emotions. Starfire was 'loud,' as Raven told it, and Robin's emotions were sharp. Empathy was the kind of thing Cyborg's mom would have done backflips to study, the way it seemed to manifest itself in every other sense, but his mom would never get to hear stories about all the crazy stuff they did.

It didn't matter that he was distracted. Robin had been checking all the recent police bulletins, and nothing had come up. Nobody else seemed to remember the sky doing gymnastics and the giant demon that had put holes in their now-immaculate tower.

By unspoken agreement, they headed over to the grocery store. By yet another unspoken agreement, Robin stepped aside to let Cyborg handle the matter of the over-filled grocery cart that seemed to involve much more processed foods than necessary.

"Um, B? I thought you were getting Raven's favorites."

"I already called for takeout, they'll have it ready to pick up in five minutes- I don't know what's happening, but she might not change back overnight. She probably won't. So I have enough stuff for the next few days."

It sounded logical. It even sounded practical. Cyborg might have been nervous, as logical and practical had never been Beast Boy's strong points, but the shopping cart was loaded with sugary cereals, fruit snacks, processed cheese... in short, everything that Raven wouldn't touch unless she had already discounted starvation as an option.

Cyborg looked from the cart to Beast Boy, then back to the cart. Robin had wordlessly added in a few of the foods that Raven actually ate on a regular basis.

Beast Boy sniffed. "You'll see. I got some of her usual stuff anyway, just in case, but... I know this one, okay? You're eight and you're in the wrong dimension and suddenly you're not eating anything that looks right at all. Sugar, processing, and food dye are a lot easier to get used to than you think."

"BB, you're from Earth," Cyborg corrected patiently, only to get a grin in reply.

"Dude, I moved from middle-of-nowhere Africa to Rhode Island. It might as well have been a dimension change." He pushed the cart up to the check-out lane before anyone could stop him. "Just trust me. Let Raven have enough time to really get in close with Starfire, we start her off with a dinner she's guaranteed to like, and by this time tomorrow she might have the first sugar-high of her life."

Cyborg felt extremely skeptical, and knew it showed on his face, but Beast Boy was sure. Even if it didn't work, this was making B happy, and it wasn't like Beast Boy and Starfire wouldn't eat all of that stuff. If that hadn't been enough, Robin was nodding slowly- and if Batman Lite could agree that mountains of refined sugar and artificial coloring were good for the soul, Cyborg wasn't going to argue.

He was going to stand back and watch, because of all of them Beast Boy had always been able to get reactions out of Raven. Sometimes they were angry, sometimes they were indignant, and sometimes they were loud, but every once in a while they were smiles and moments that were cute enough to really make Cyborg feel like he was going to rot the teeth right out of his mouth.

For a little while, Cyborg's team was going to have a little kid in their keeping. It had been pretty rough for Raven the first time through childhood, and if Beast Boy thought that breakfast cereal coated in frosting would help, then Cyborg was going to stand back and be glad that his memory came with a playback feature. They were going to want pictures as documentation when Raven was back to her usual size and self, and with any luck it would be after he had coaxed her into trying a video game.


	2. Chapter 2

_I will occasionally bring in elements of a plot, but the majority of this story is character-driven, not event-driven. I have several scenes that have been planned out for months, and I'm very excited to keep writing this out leaving a few crazy moments along the way. The response to the first chapter was amazing, and consider the fast turnaround as everyone's reward for making me feel like I'm doing something right. _

_I apologize to any squeamish meat-eaters, but Beast Boy is a very firm vegetarian. He's finished after the first paragraph for that particular rant._

"_Pad gai" is traditionally called "pad khing" or "gai pad khing," but all Thai restaurants I have encountered make allowances for customers that don't speak a single word of their language. My absolute favorite Thai restaurant refers to all menu items by a number.  
_

**Paved Paradise  
Chapter Two: Flying Lessons**

Beast Boy ignored the outright skepticism from Robin and Cyborg. He didn't see why either of them were complaining, he'd even picked up a few things from the deli for them to save return trips in the next few days. Unfertilized eggs and milk were easy enough to buy, as long as he didn't think about the living conditions of animals in those industries, but processed meat was about as gross as the packaged stuff with little pieces of skinless chicken-carcass. He kept those thoughts to himself, in interest of keeping the peace, because he knew they were both going to start fighting him when he pointed them toward the right take-out place.

"Thai food?" Cyborg asked. "Are you sure about that? Little kids don't always like spicy."

"I'm sure," Beast Boy said, loading the last bag of sugary goodness into the car. "It's from something Raven said once, so I'm very sure. Even more sure than I am about breakfast cereal that turns the milk pink."

Robin grimaced at the visual. He had already grabbed the passenger seat, but Beast Boy didn't care. That left room for him to stretch out in the back—not literally, because seat belts were not designed for anacondas, but at least he had legroom.

Cyborg at least understood the merits of milk-changing cereal, even if he made a funny face after Beast Boy came out of the little restaurant with two bags of dinner. "You're crazy, but it just might work. Did you at least go light on the spice for hers?"

"Double-mild," Beast Boy confirmed. "I couldn't tell them exactly what happened, but the cashier we usually talk to thinks that Raven had a knock or two in our last fight. It's not exactly wrong, and it's easier than explaining why she's not at medium-and-a-half spicy like usual, so I let it go." There was a good question- "What do we do next time the alarm goes off? She fought Trigon, but did you see when she and Star were flying off? I don't think Raven knows how to fly yet."

"One of us will have to stay back," Robin said. "We have too many enemies to leave her alone when she's vulnerable, and that would get worse fast if anyone noticed that she's too young to defend herself."

"That's going to mean extra drills." Cyborg didn't sound nearly as irritated as he usually would. "Starfire's the best contender for the first round of Raven-sitting, so the three of us should probably hit the gym sometime after dinner."

"An hour after, maybe. I want to start a little research to see how we're supposed to get her back to normal," Robin said. "That gives me time to explain the idea to Starfire, too. We can try to switch off a little, in case we're fighting somebody where we need her kind of firepower, but it does make sense to leave her with Raven first."

"Explaining all of this is going to get weird." Cyborg tapped a finger against the steering wheel carefully. If he didn't pay attention, he'd leave a dent. "Hey Raven, I know you just met us, but we've known you for a couple years, you're a superhero, and we just celebrated your sixteenth birthday by having Slade stalk us again- Slade."

Robin turned, of course, but that was the word that was guaranteed to get a response out of their Fearless Leader. "What do you mean?"

Cyborg half-turned from the road, leaving the electronic eye to keep watching traffic. "Slade was at the fight. He saw little-Raven when we were looking for a big-Raven."

Beast Boy could actually hear Robin's teeth grinding together a little, but it might have just been because he had really good hearing.

"Starfire's first up on protection duty, and she's going to be _really _protective," Beast Boy said, before it could turn into another Slade Manifesto. Slade was creepy and evil and somehow not-dead (or maybe undead? Maybe he was a zombie now, if he was dead and he got a little better, but not in the way that made him a better person, just the way that made him less dead). They didn't need to repeat all the reasons why. "We'll keep watching for Slade, Robin can research ways to get Raven back to normal so she can kick his butt for all of the stuff he did about the prophecy- no fair getting in her way. Raven totally has dibs on kicking Slade's butt this time, and until Raven gets big again we get to have kid-Raven."

Robin and Cyborg were giving him a weird look again. Beast Boy decided to ignore it, because they were already pulling into the Tower, and he wanted to go join Starfire and Raven's party. Raven was usually on the side of the wet blankets, but she'd switched teams with Cyborg for a while.

Robin looked like he wanted to argue with some part of Beast Boy's brilliant plan, but he ended up just grabbing a couple bags of groceries and heading for the kitchen. Beast Boy followed with dinner and a couple bags of cereal, and then Cyborg showed off by carrying all the rest of it in one go.

Starfire and Raven took a couple minutes to show up, but whatever they had been doing was worth it. Raven's cloak was still white, and she was walking pretty close to Starfire- not in the nervous way, but because any little kid would instantly know that Starfire was one of the best friends they could ever have. Starfire was thrilled that Beast Boy had remembered to grab several handfuls of the "tiny packages of the most wonderful heated mustard," and that left him face-to-face with someone undeniably shorter than he was.

He had no idea how to ask, but starting off with a vague question had worked before. "Did you and Star have time to talk?"

Raven nodded, very seriously, but the gesture that could usually be a little intimidating was really cute coming from somebody that didn't reach his shoulders. "She said that I live here later, and that all of you know me when I was sixteen."

"We met when you were fourteen, and in the first few weeks we were going through about every kind of food Earth had to offer." Beast Boy offered a paper box with a flourish. "This is one of your favorites. It's not as spicy as you usually get it, but you have to build up a little tolerance first or your mouth won't thank you for it."

Raven accepted the box very politely, but it was all too plain that she was simply too well-mannered to say that he was insane. She was probably going to make a priceless expression when she noticed all of the great food he'd found at the store. He'd had about the same reaction, the first time he remembered going to a store where you didn't see any live animals and there were more vegetables than the entire town would see for months, and Rita had ended up going through about every aisle with him explaining what the different things were and how they tasted. That would have drawn a lot of attention even if he wasn't green. As it was, they had a few people following along like it was a live documentary about the American supermarket.

Maybe they could keep the staring part from happening to Raven, if Cyborg still remembered how to make the hologram ring things.

Beast Boy could be patient, not that anybody ever seemed to believe him. He waited while Raven poked at her pad gai. Cyborg had warned her about the hot mustard, but Raven definitely would have figured that out on her own after watching Starfire very happily opening the little packets and pouring them into a glass. By the time Starfire had a full glass of thin off-yellow mustard, Raven looked ready to never touch a drop of the stuff in her life, but the classic little-kid reaction kicked in the instant that Starfire took a drink.

"Gross!"

Starfire laughed. "This is not gross to my tastes, but I believe that you would disapprove most heavily. You will like your dinner much better. I believe that it is one of your first three favorites when you are older."

Beast Boy might have sulked a little that Starfire's word was law, but he wasn't in any mood to hold onto grudges. Raven took a hesitant bite after Starfire's urgings, doubtfully pronounced it okay, and then tried a little more. Within a minute, she called it way better than monk-food and was listening to Starfire talk about all of the things that they could do after dinner.

He had been right about the Thai food, and was holding out hope for the groceries, but he had one more idea. "What about flying?" he asked when Starfire had to pause to think about more ideas. "I don't think Raven has learned yet, we have a nice big roof with nothing to break, and if anything doesn't work we have two people that can catch."

Raven looked from Beast Boy to Cyborg to Robin, quite confused. "Even if I was falling off of the building or something?"

Beast Boy shifted into a parrot for illustration. Eagles were more impressive, and pterydactyls were way cooler, but parrots were harmless and didn't tend to scare people. She did look impressed enough to make him feel a little better when he changed back. "I can turn into bigger stuff, too, but it's rude to do big animals or shedding animals at the dinner table. That's been a rule since I was eight."

"You really could teach me how to fly?"

Beast Boy froze, not having any idea how Raven flew at all, but Starfire saved him.

"I believe that I will be able to explain the easiest way to begin flying," she said. "Would you like to start after we have finished dinner?"

The answer to that was an emphatic yes. Raven could hardly be persuaded to finish dinner at all, but the coolest part was that they didn't have to wait long. Cyborg volunteered to clear the table, leaving Beast Boy free to run up to the roof with Starfire and Raven. He would have cheated by going cheetah, if only for the joke, but cheetahs were only fast on open ground. With stairs, it was a lot easier to use a smaller cat, like an ocelot, because stumbling as a tiger or one of the other big cats just felt embarrassing.

Starfire was probably the best teacher anybody was going to find. Beast Boy had no idea when they'd talked about it, but Starfire coached Raven through all the steps of flying with psychokinesis or whatever it was they'd decided that Rae used to kick butt. Beast Boy only had to catch Raven once, and he didn't have to shift to do it. She'd gone straight up, wobbled a little too much, and lost concentration- falling straight back down into his arms. She only had four mishaps altogether before she caught the hang of it, and after a couple minutes of watching her carefully start to mimic Starfire, he decided he wouldn't be that distracting.

Hawks and eagles were great for catching updrafts, condors and albatrosses were the coolest ever for gliding, and hummingbirds were just fun, but he wanted something that was fast enough to keep up without completely tiring him out. If he wanted to follow along with the flying tricks besides, falcon was the way to go. Peregrine falcons were one of his favorites, anyway, and with those wings he had the control to spiral around them.

Somehow, that had turned into the weirdest game of tag ever. It was a little dangerous for a bird to bump its wing against somebody flying in unexpected direction, but they had eventually settled on a new set of rules. Instead of actually touching the person, you had to fly in a circle around them before they could fly away. Beast Boy and Starfire went easy on Raven at the start, by unspoken agreement, but Raven was always going to be a fast learner. Beast Boy had to switch to bat after half an hour, when it was getting dark enough that his falcon eyes weren't doing much good, and by the time they all touched back down to the roof he was ready to sleep for a week... or go train with Robin and Cyborg so that Starfire could hang back with Raven the next time a call came in.

"You did most wonderfully, friend Raven!" Starfire was beaming, as anybody should be after a game like that. "Perhaps you would like to join me for finding a snack in the kitchen? We should also be sure to get something to drink, so that you will not be too sore tomorrow. We do not use muscles to fly, precisely, but it still takes a great deal of energy."

'Great deal of energy' was right. Raven looked exhausted, but that would only help later. Sleeping in a new place had always been hard for Beast Boy, and she'd have an easier time staying asleep after all this. He actually felt better than he'd expected. Spending time as a bat had made him feel like he wanted to stay up pretty late, which was exactly what he'd be doing, after grabbing a snack. Robin couldn't fight about that one too much, Beast Boy had gotten in a good warm-up and everything.

Beast Boy felt quite smug when Raven cautiously tried the fruit snacks. She had been completely confused by the general lack of fruit, even if he had gotten the kind with twelve percent juice worked in with the high-fructose corn syrup. Still, Starfire and Beast Boy were eating them, and he could see the subtle magics of peer pressure working. Raven tried one when she thought neither of them were watching her, chewing very slowly, and when she reached for a second she wasn't nearly so careful.

The three of them ended up eating an entire box, but it wasn't like they hadn't burned it all off. Flying took a whole lot of energy, and sometimes Beast Boy wasn't sure that Robin got it. Cyborg used to fight him on that until Beast Boy made a copy from his animal encyclopedia to show just how much energy a hummingbird needed to fly. That had been the last time Cyborg teased him about getting worn out after barely putting his feet on the ground during a fight.

Training wasn't nearly as cool as flying around on the roof had been, but it was important. Starfire was probably the best choice of all of them to play bodyguard, especially with how well she knew Raven's powers. After recent events, she'd even blast Slade first and ask questions later.

For once, Beast Boy was in the gym before Robin. Cyborg was already lifting weights that were probably the equal of a couple fully-grown red kangaroos, using the gym's robot-spotter. Not that it was a spotter just for guys that were part robot, but Cyborg was the best with it because he could talk to the thing in binary.

"Rob's in research-mode, but he'll be along in a few minutes. I convinced him that we don't need a full set of training exercises, just a little review about how we'd want to handle the most likely situations in the next few days." Cyborg was the only person Beast Boy had ever met that had full conversations while still doing bench-presses of things that weighed a few hundred pounds.

"He's figuring out how we can get Raven to have a growth spurt?"

"If Robin can't find anything tomorrow, I'm going to ask Raven if I can take a look at a few of her books." Cyborg set the weights back in place carefully before sliding out from under them. "I asked her a few weeks ago, and she pointed out a shelf that's safe to touch."

Books were definitely not supposed to be dangerous... but neither were hand-mirrors. Beast Boy decided that he'd just not get involved with that kind of stuff unless somebody asked him. Maybe it would make a lot more sense to just leave all the research to Cyborg and Robin. Cyborg could read through all the weird books about magic faster than anyone else on the team, and he'd remember them better. Robin had all kinds of connections that nobody else was supposed to know about- like a communicator that never left his paper-crazy office with a bat on the side of it. They'd figure out what had happened, and what they could do about it.

That left Beast Boy and Starfire to make sure Raven was okay, and he was fine with that.


	3. Chapter 3

_The response to this story has been incredible. I'm glad that other people enjoy the idea, and I hope you like little-Raven's first full conversation of the story. This chapter has given me a lot of trouble, and still feels slightly off, but I've been holding the entire story back for these scenes. If you have any comments about how I could make this read more smoothly, please leave a comment in a review.  
_

**Paved Paradise  
Chapter Three: Nightmares and Tea  
**

Beast Boy didn't know a lot about what it'd be like to live with Raven's powers, but he _did _remember being eight. He even remembered being eight and feeling the entire world change too fast for anybody to follow, let alone a kid. He had been eight when he had gotten sick, he had been eight when his parents had found the miracle cure that happened to turn him green, he had been eight when he realized that he could change into any animal that he could focus on well enough, and he had been eight when his parents had died and he hadn't known how to save them.

So he had no idea what it would be like to be an empath or a telekinetic or any of the others, or to suddenly be in a totally different place with all these strangers around telling crazy stories that he'd been sixteen the day before, but he remembered that people never seemed to give kids enough credit. That was for kids in general, too. Kids were pretty smart, and they listened way more than most adults could remember. This was Raven, who was probably smarter at eight than most people were going to be. She was just about as mature as he remembered, but he didn't think that was going to mean a lot when it was the middle of the night and all of the noises were wrong.

For once, Robin had gone easy on them at practice, so it wasn't hard for Beast Boy to firmly tell himself that he'd be catnapping for a good long while. Robin, Cyborg, and Beast Boy had run through a few of their usual drills, but mostly they had talked about how they were going to compensate for losing both Starfire and Raven. Usually, they could have three people up in the air and two on the ground, but they were losing two of their flying powerhouses. Cyborg was still going to be with them, for power, but Beast Boy was on his own for covering the sky. If anything got bad, they'd need to call backup from Titans East, and they might need to have a story ready. Robin wanted to keep it all secret because that was how Robin did things, but Beast Boy thought that Cyborg was thinking about personal things, too. Raven would probably be embarrassed enough to know that her friends had seen her when she was little. She'd be upset if they brought people around to stare at her.

Flying with her had been really fun, and Beast Boy and Starfire had been rather proud of themselves. Raven had looked so _serious _before, and he never would have been able to manage that at eight. He and Raven hadn't ever compared notes about their childhoods, except for accidental mentions that came out sometimes, but from the sounds of it her mother wasn't out to win any parenting awards. That sucked, because her dad definitely wasn't a contender for Parent of the Year, and it didn't feel like anybody else had stepped up in their place. He hadn't had his parents for very long, maybe, but he knew that they'd loved him. They had been proud of him for figuring out how to change, and he'd been able to talk to them before they died. They _knew _they were going to die and they still had hugged him and told him that they were proud and that he was never, ever supposed to be ashamed of what he could do. He had the chance to help people, and he'd find the chances to use it—so when he ended up back in America, he had joined a group of superheroes out in Rhode Island. The Doom Patrol wasn't nearly as famous as Batman (and Robin), but they did well enough. They even had arch-enemies, and that was one of the first steps of being Official Superheroes.

He had been half-asleep for a few hours when he finally heard it. It was a very quiet sound, but he had good hearing and he'd been waiting for it. There was a tiny hiss next door when Raven's door opened, and a few seconds later another hiss when it closed. The doors were pretty quiet, but he could always tell when somebody was moving around. He waited for a minute, in case she was going to go knock on Starfire's door, but the next sound was the slightly louder noise of somebody moving into the common room.

He waited a little longer before following her. He didn't really have a game plan, but he had enough of an idea what to expect. Raven had nightmares, sometimes. So did he. They never talked about them, but sometimes they were both awake in the middle of the night and they'd just sit in the kitchen together for a while. It was nice. He was too tired to say anything that would irritate her, and she was too tired to do anything but make tea, but they were at least sitting there together.

When Beast Boy made his way to the kitchen, he made some noise. He wasn't all that obvious about it, but he dragged his feet a little as he headed for the common room, and when the door opened she didn't look surprised. That might have been the empathy-sense thing, but he didn't really care what had warned her as long as she wasn't scared. She looked over her shoulder, but went back to business when she saw him come into the light.

She was standing on a chair in the kitchen, looking up at the cabinets, and he could guess exactly what she was after.

"Are you looking for tea?"

A stranger wouldn't have caught it, but he'd lived with her for years. Raven was surprised, from the tiny little tilt in her eyebrow, but that was all she was going to show. "Yes. Starfire said that I had some, here, but I don't know where it is."

"Sorry about that. We forgot to put it down somewhere you could reach." Beast Boy knew where that was, at least, and he set the box on the kitchen counter. Raven had moved a chair over to get a little more height, and that was the only way she could see the counter at all. "You usually have one of the little packets at night, so you don't have to deal with loose leaves—the purple ones."

While she studied the little satchel that would open into a teabag made out of some kind of thin cloth, Beast Boy filled the kettle halfway with water. There had been a little water left in it, but not enough for a full cup. He didn't want her reaching over the stove, even if the burners were off at the moment, so they'd have to work something out if she wasn't going to grow back overnight. Maybe they could get one of those weird pitcher things that heated water when you pushed a button. Most of the ones he had seen in the store were plastic, and they would be a lot safer for Raven to use on her own while she was still tiny.

Neither of them said much while the water boiled. He was still really tired, and she kept sneaking glances at him when she thought he wasn't looking. Beast Boy turned the stove off about thirty seconds before the kettle would have whistled. He thought he poured out the right amount of water into the mug she used all the time, but he hadn't exactly taken notes on the process.

"Thanks," she said.

"No problem. Did you have a bad dream?"

Raven had already dropped the cloth ball into the tea. At his question, she stabbed at it with a spoon. "No. Not really. It was just a weird dream, because usually it's the one where I'd really see Trigon but there wasn't anything there. I can get back to sleep after those, mostly, but it's..." Raven bit her lip, and poked at the tea again with her spoon.

"It doesn't sound right?" Beast Boy offered.

Raven turned around, this time looking surprised enough that anybody could have caught it. She nodded. "It's the waves. They sound nice, but it's not right. It's always so quiet in the monastery that you barely hear anything at night, except sometimes the birds when they get scared."

"A monastery, huh? Didn't know you were raised by all guys."

Raven was pretty cute when she was completely confused. It wasn't something that seemed to happen often when she was sixteen. "I wasn't. Azar was a lady, and she was the one in charge." She left her chair by the counter when she walked over to sit next to him.

"Oh! My bad. Around here, monasteries are for monks, and all the monks are guys. If women want to go do whatever it is monks do all day, they're nuns."

"That's weird," Raven said. "They're doing the same thing. Why would they need different words for it?"

Beast Boy shrugged. He'd never paid that much attention to monks, after deciding they had the most boring job ever invented. "I don't know, it's just the way things worked out. I was hoping that there was some kind of sound you were used to, almost, because that's easier to add in something like the wind or listening in on a jungle. You do get used to new sounds after a few nights."

Raven had turned back around. For somebody standing on a chair, she had remarkably good balance. He knew he would have fallen over at her age, but she looked just as steady as if she were standing on the floor. She tasted a spoonful tentatively. He only could see a small part of her face, but it was enough to know what the reaction had been.

"Too bitter?"

She actually blushed. Usually that took something crazy, but her control wasn't all the way there yet. "A little. Azar said that it's much better to take tea without anything else, because of something about the leaves she likes to use, but I think it's going to take forever to get used to that. She doesn't have any sugar around when I have tea with her, but a few of the monks like it sweet, too."

That was very easy to fix. Beast Boy produced the sugar with a flourish, after a discreet sniff. Sometimes when Starfire was cooking, a little something extra got in the sugar bowl, and the next person to pick it up had a big surprise. Sometimes the surprise even moved.

So far, Raven wasn't any more talkative at eight than she was at sixteen. She finished her tea pretty quickly after adding two heaping spoonfuls of sugar, but she didn't look quite ready to head back to her room.

Beast Boy had taken his usual seat at the table after finding Raven a dry spoon for the sugar. She didn't need anybody hovering, at any age, but he didn't want to leave yet. "You can't sleep sometimes when you're older, too. I think all of us have the same problem, but you and I seem to run into each other the most. We usually sit out here until somebody gets tired enough to go back to bed."

"We're friends?"

There was no way he was going to mess with her head because it still surprised _him_ that they werefriends. They didn't seem to have much at all in common, but when something happened they were the ones to talk about it. It hadn't felt right, when Robin had stolen Beast Boy's place as the designated Raven-whisperer just because there was a prophecy and an apocalypse involved, but Beast Boy might have messed something up along the way.

"We're friends. It took us a while to figure that out. I think we'd actually been living here for two months before we had that talk, and- er- it happened because I was being dumb and accidentally got myself and Cyborg sucked into Nevermore while Trigon was acting up."

Little-Raven (as he was thinking of her, at least, because she wasn't the Raven he knew yet) didn't look mad. At least he didn't think she looked mad, because none of the little symbols that meant "retreat NOW" were there. There weren't any veins pulsing, the muscles around her mouth hadn't gone all tight, and she hadn't narrowed her eyes at all. There wasn't red unless he'd really done something wrong.

"You didn't get hurt?"

"Not a bit. You let me and Cy help out, and that was the first time that we saw you kick Trigon's butt." Beast Boy stood, thinking about something else. They could talk about Trigon another time, but it didn't seem like the best topic when she'd had a nightmare already and needed to get back to bed. "Did Starfire show you around the Tower before?"

Raven shook her head. "She showed me my room, and talked a lot about meditating, and then everyone else came back."

"Come on, this'll be fun," Beast Boy said. She was out of tea, and he didn't want to send her back to bed until he was sure she would sleep. Walking all over the Tower would be perfect, and she'd know her way around for later.

He didn't spare any of the sights. They started from the shoreline (climbing up stairs took a lot more effort), and he showed her all of the places where the two of them had talked. She looked a little unnerved by the boiler room and the room where they kept their generators, but she liked finding all of the smaller details about the common room and kitchen. She insisted on cleaning out the cup that she had used, so while they had the soap up they washed the few dishes that had been left at the edge of the sink. She dried each dish as if it were made of fine china, and he was sure that if he had missed a spot she would have told him.

Raven still wasn't tired when they walked up to the roof, but she surprised him all the same. At some point, her hand had slipped into his.

Usually, she was about his size, but maybe this was how Cyborg always felt. Raven's hand was so small that it would fit splayed out on just his palm, and he had known right away that this was important. He didn't say anything about it, but he squeezed just a little and explained that the roof was great for meditating, as long as people weren't playing volleyball.

He'd actually gotten through most of the rules for volleyball, and was starting to lose track of just what he could talk about next, when she yawned. The Raven he was most familiar with would have slammed doors if he'd made the suggestion, but... she was eight, right now, and he hadn't put up that much of a fuss when he'd been in a new place or when a miracle cure had turned him greener than Kermit.

Beast Boy felt ready to drop over, but he walked Raven back to her room, and tucked her into bed with very little ceremony. She was still very shy, so he kept the explanation simple, but if he was still reading her right she liked the idea. His parents had done it for him when he was eight, because the jungle sounded really weird for somebody used to the city. He promised to answer questions the next day, and barely had time to say good night before she was sound asleep.

His alarm was set to go off in two and a half hours, but some things were more important than sleep. He slept lightly for the rest of the night, just in case, but Raven's door didn't open. When he heard Starfire's door open, and the bathroom door click shut a few seconds later, he let himself fall into a much deeper sleep. Someone else was there to look out for Raven, now, so he could let a little of the pressure go.


	4. Chapter 4

_This was the first chapter written for the story. Writing the first chapter took a very long time, but I think I had the first draft for this done in forty minutes.  
_

**Paved Paradise  
Chapter Four: Eye of the Beholder**

Beast Boy was cheerful at breakfast, which wasn't all that unusual. It wasn't even that strange for him to get up early once in a while. The weird part was that he completely ignored the bacon sizzling on the stove in favor of regaling Raven with the pleasures of breakfast cereals of questionable nutritional content. Within minutes, she gamely tried some fiendishly sugar-ridden food product saturated with artificial dye. It was the kind of thing that would have made her cringe at sixteen, but just a second after her first solemn bite at age eight, her eyes lit up. Beast Boy was entirely unsurprised, and he toasted her with a spoonful of the same cereal. It would have been cute enough to make Cyborg sick, but Raven hadn't had nearly enough happy memories when she'd been that age the first time.

Starfire was just as comfortable with the new breakfast routine, and she patiently described the different types of fruit juice and the fruits that produced them. She and Beast Boy had a four-minute presentation, with Beast Boy supplying details about what the fruit looked like and where it grew, and Starfire comparing each to Tamaranean varieties. When Raven decided on apple, Starfire poured out three glasses. She did extend the offer after a moment, but even if Cyborg and Robin had accepted it would have been a party of three.

Cyborg couldn't help feeling a little jealous. He understood that Raven wasn't likely to be social on that first day that she'd been with them. Starfire had saved the day there, no mistake. Star knew just enough about Raven's history and empathy to be the most trustworthy person possible, and Beast Boy had figured out the secret just a few hours later. Cyborg did feel a little better that Raven was just as diligent about avoiding Robin. She had spent most of the previous day trailing Starfire around the Tower, and she had been glowing after an the evening lesson in flying with BB and Star there to supervise.

He didn't know just which part of him was intimidating to a little girl, but he could guess. He was huge, he was half made out of metal, and she had seen him shooting blasts out of his wrists. He would be more surprised if she had decided to approach him.

By the time Beast Boy made it into the garage two hours later, Cyborg really missed Raven. They'd always had a bit of an understanding, even if they never had said much at all about their pasts. He'd told Raven a couple things about what it was like going to high school like a normal kid, but he couldn't say much at all about making the varsity track team as a freshman without remembering the explosion that had ruined his sophomore season. He had made it through the first year, at least, without any superpowers or secret identities. That was more than anyone else had done.

Beast Boy hesitated in the doorway, probably warned by Cyborg's expression. "Bad time?"

Cyborg relented. It wasn't Beast Boy's felt that little kids loved him. "Nothing that can't wait. What's up?"

"Hypothetical question that isn't all that hypothetical," Beast Boy said. He wasn't nearly as practiced in the garage as Raven, but he made his way over to his usual chair. He had never felt comfortable getting too involved, but Cyborg could count on him to hand over tools in the middle of a hard project.

"Shoot."

"Can you change your eye color?" Beast Boy tapped beneath his own left eye, just in case Cyborg hadn't guessed. "Not permanently, but just for a little bit? I think you'd be fine if you could get a blue filter over it and made it purple, even."

Cyborg frowned. The eye wouldn't work nearly as well with another color, as he'd start to lose most color differentiation, but it wouldn't be that hard to swap in a few diodes and LEDs on a temporary basis. "I could make it blue to match the rest pretty easy, especially if I could borrow a hand for a few minutes. Why?"

"Raven's not so big on the red. She's had a few outbreaks of redeye when she was even littler, and the idiots raising her would always make like Mento and freak the heck out. Star and I explained, but if you could change it up for a few hours it'd be a good icebreaker."

If Beast Boy was going to mention his old guardian, Cyborg wasn't going to ruin it by making it into a big deal. "She's talked about that? All I know about Azarath could be summed up on a flashcard."

"Star already knows back from when we had the Napoleon-complex marionette guy. Starfire had to figure out how to use Rae's powers, so they had to exchange histories a little. That's why Rae insta-bonded with Starfire this time around." Beast Boy had figured out how to be perceptive sometime when Cyborg wasn't watching, because he added an explanation with no outright prompting. "Star's powers work by expressing emotions, right? Rae explained yesterday that it's like Starfire turned on a spotlight. I lucked out, really, because I was in the right place at the right time. She's already asked about a few animals after seeing a dolphin this morning, so we'll be busy for a couple hours. Raven and Star are deciding which of my animal books they want me to start with."

"Huh. There's your new community outreach, then. We can just loan you to elementary schools, and it's suddenly the best nature show ever." Cyborg raised a brow when Beast Boy looked uncertain. "You would make some little kid's year. When the heck else are they going to see a T rex?"

"About as often as a little kid gets to see do-it-yourself home videos of herself kicking butt, probably." Beast Boy had already moved over to the area of the garage that had spare parts not meant for the T-car. He didn't touch anything, but he did spend a few extra seconds looking at the pair of rings lying near the edge of the work counter. He didn't say a word about them, but he didn't need to- Cyborg had the hologram rings out, and BB knew about them. That was all they needed.

"Star and I told her about the fights, but it would be way cooler if you could show her. Robin has copies of a few of them, but his are all analyzed, and he usually focuses on the mistakes."

"Okay, but if she's weirded out to see a blue eye, I'm blaming you."

"She won't, Cy," Beast Boy promised. "After you get to know her a little, she won't even be freaked by the red anymore."

* * *

**Two hours later  
**Raven didn't react as expected, which really should stop surprising him. It would be even better if he'd stop trying to predict her. She blushed when she noticed his eye, and spent all of lunch chasing macaroni around her plate with a fork. Beast Boy looked embarrassed, but Starfire was unruffled. She gently coaxed Raven into eating, and the two of them had a quiet conversation that added macaroni and cheese to the list of good foods. After a little more debate, Raven tried the broccoli, with Starfire matching her for every bite. It took a little more consideration, but Raven did concede that broccoli was okay.

All of that was pretty normal, but it was like someone had knocked the volume down a few notches. Robin left lunch early, again, and Starfire was no better when everyone was done. She neatly corralled Beast Boy into helping her with the dishes, and the two of them vanished when Cyborg was trying to figure out what on earth he was supposed to say to Raven when she looked even shyer than before.

Raven glanced at him, and her expression shifted into that very stubborn look he recognized from her older self. "I didn't mean to make you change your eye."

She had turned in her chair to look at him, and he realized all over again that she was tiny. He'd been able to carry her in one arm when she was sixteen, and it was oddly natural that she was half that size again at eight. "I'd use a few more drastic options to help you feel more comfortable, Raven. I have no idea how long you're going to be littler than we're all used to, but we want you to feel safe. I think I was the only person here that was happy when I was your age, and all of us want you to feel good about yourself this time around."

Sometimes, it was like nothing at all had changed. Rae had that same solemn way of thinking things through, even if it was a touch disconcerting coming from someone so young. "Beast Boy said that you let me help you with your car."

"You're the only one here with the patience for it. BB comes around sometimes, but staying still for more than a couple hours a time makes him antsy. Starfire likes the odd lesson in how cars work, and by the end of the year she'll probably be able to teach a mechanic a thing or two. Rob only really comes around when he needs to fix up something on the R-cycle. He stays around for that, but I'm doing most of the work on it."

Raven still had her eyebrows drawn together in concentration. He could almost see the pieces clicking into place for her. He waited her out, just like he always did, and completely recognized that small change in expression that meant she had it. Once she made her decision, there was no changing her mind—even if that decision was to reach out and put her hand on top of his.

Cyborg carefully flipped his over. Her entire hand wasn't quite as long as one of his fingers.

"Your eye can go back?" Raven asked.

Cyborg winked—not that it was hard, with one eye capable of the feat. A moment later, his left eye switched to red.

Raven looked more at ease after peering at his eye to be sure it was back to normal. "Blue looked weird," she said.

"Maybe, but I think it'll work out for the best that I did try switching it up. Red is the best for the equipment I have running right now, but there are a few programs that would work much better with the blue. Besides, now I can do this." His eye flicked to purple, and she actually giggled. Cyborg already would have done anything for his friend, but somehow that entire emotion was stronger all over again. Raven might have a day or a month as a little kid, but she was going to be happy.

Raven's fingers curled around his thumb. "It's kind of nice that not everybody has normal eyes. All of the monks said that mine are uncanny."

"They were just jealous that they were boring next to you."

Raven wrinkled her nose. "They're really, really boring, and all they want to talk about is controlling my emotions and being careful with my powers, and I have to meditate all the time. Starfire's way of doing it is a lot easier."

"When you're big, sometimes you like to come in the garage to meditate. You know I won't bug you, but I think you like having someone else around while you're off fixing up Nevermore."

It was very hard to surprise Raven, but that had managed it. "Beast Boy told me last night, but I forgot."

"B and I ended up there by accident. Trigon was giving you a few problems, and we didn't know what was happening or what to do to help you out. Beast Boy found the mirror, I got grabbed with him, and both of us ended up in your head. You really weren't happy about that, but it was when you and Beast Boy finally figured out you were friends."

By the time that Cyborg had told the whole story (with a few projected video clips of the highlights), he had the feeling that he'd joined a very exclusive club. Raven hadn't let go of his hand, and it almost hurt to see just how intently she listened to stories about them. It was all of her usual seriousness, but she hadn't quite learned to shut herself away. The few times she mentioned the monks or Azar, it was all too easy to see that she would have done anything to make them happy. She'd even lock down all her emotions so tightly that most people never knew they existed, and so well that it was like pulling teeth to get her to admit when she was afraid.

If he ever met any of the idiots from Azarath, it would not go well. He hadn't seen anybody that starved for positive attention since… Beast Boy, actually. It was no surprise that she'd hit it off with Beast Boy and Starfire that fast, with all of that common history that they understood before Raven had even shown up in miniature.

Beast Boy looked extremely smug when he and Starfire reappeared an hour later, but that only lasted for a few seconds. Cyborg and Raven had moved to the common room, and she was sitting next to him with no care for her usual enforced bubble of personal space. That had probably caused the smug look, but Cyborg returned with a smirk when Beast Boy noticed the next detail. Raven had a GameStation controller in her hands, and she was navigating a level of Super Marlo Sisters with the same concentration that an especially good book might merit.

"Dude!"

Starfire beamed. She and Beast Boy both flew over to the couch, to better stay out of Raven's line of sight on the television. Beast Boy was still gaping at the sight of Raven playing a video game with every sign of happiness, but Starfire's proud glance moved to the television. She might not play with them all that often, but she recognized all of the pertinent details.

"Wonderful, friend Raven! You have beaten Beast Boy's most superior score."

Beast Boy's jaw dropped, Cy's smirk grew wider, and Raven calmly finished the level with a combination move that had taken Cyborg two weeks to master.

Beast Boy looked from Raven to the controller to the television, repeating the sequence twice before grinning. "You are the bomb, Rae." She giggled and half-heartedly pushed at his wrist when Beast Boy ruffled her hair. "And Cy?"

"Yeah?"

"She just beat your top score out by 600 points."

Raven didn't look the slightest bit nervous. It probably helped that she could read his emotions, and 'frustration' was far from what Cyborg was feeling. There was nothing wrong with his protege beating everybody, if she was going to start getting high scores, and this was all the ammunition he needed go goad Raven into playing again when she hit sixteen for the second time. All he had to do was beat these new high scores and use Raven's poorly-hidden competitive streak. "I think I'm kind of glad that you never played us when you were big. Losing to an eight-year-old prodigy is one thing, but it'd be really bad to lose to a teenage girl."

Starfire smiled sweetly, which would be enough to make anybody nervous. "Is that so, friend Cyborg?" She glanced at Raven, and some response no one else noticed told Starfire to continue. "Let us see how you and friend Beast Boy fare against two girls, then, and the losers shall clean the dishes after dinner."

There was no way he and Beast Boy could back out of that challenge, even before considering that Raven looked thrilled. Cyborg knew that he and Beast Boy would get an extra chore, because there was no way anybody else was going to win when Starfire had that look in her eyes, but at least he and BB could make it a hard fight. "You're on."


	5. Chapter 5

_This chapter was not supposed to take so long. I spent a very long time writing out two chapters with Cyborg, and then a week ago I realized that it wasn't his turn to take the perspective. I would love to promise that this won't happen again, but my exam list is very impressive this semester. I have three quizzes and at least one exam per week (the average is two exams per week), so writing is that thing that I do when I need a break from studying. Have an extra-long chapter to make up for the delay; once she started, Raven did not want to stop._

_Raven's perspective feels repetitive, and rambles quite a bit. This chapter would have been nine pages, but Raven insisted on writing three more late last night. This felt like the best place to leave the chapter, and with all luck the next will be much faster.  
_

_To all the reviewers out there: you guys rock, and every time I read a comment I remembered that I owe you all a chapter. I have the plot for this all settled and a very big bit of action coming up in time, so I hope you all enjoy the story. _

**Paved Paradise  
Chapter Five: The Mall of Shopping**

Raven couldn't figure out where to look. She was buckled securely into the seat right behind Cyborg, and they were driving through the city. She only could see out of the windows at all because Cyborg and Beast Boy had put in something called a booster seat that looked a bit like a colorful, cushioned shelf. Cyborg had gotten up really early to go buy one, after he put on two big rings that made him look different and like there weren't any metal parts. It made his eyes match, too, and it was like her friend had been replaced by a stranger that looked a little like him.

Beast Boy had explained a little about how the rings worked while Cyborg was getting the car seat, and how Cyborg had made a second hologram projector for the bracelet he made for her. It had taken Cyborg all night, but he didn't seem to think it was a big deal. He said that he could catch a catnap later and feel fine, but nobody had ever done something like that for her, except when Beast Boy had come out to talk to her after she had a nightmare. She still had one hand resting on the bracelet he'd made just for her as she stared at the crowds of people on the sides of the road and the dozens and dozens of stores.

It was a very plain bracelet, but she wouldn't trade it for anything. The silver links were very shiny, and they clinked together whenever she moved her hand. Starfire and Cyborg had been talking during dinner the night before while they thought Beast Boy was distracting her. Raven didn't have enough clothes that would fit her. She could borrow things from Starfire, but they didn't fit very well. Starfire had decided before anyone else had an idea, because it would be too strange if one of the Teen Titans started buying clothes for a little girl. Cyborg could use his hologram rings and take her, as long as they disguised Raven's hair to make it harder for people to figure out who she was.

After dinner, Starfire had brushed Raven's hair, even if nobody had needed to do that since Raven had learned how. Raven hadn't understood why anybody else would need to do it, but it made Starfire happy and it felt nice. The whole time, Starfire had told Raven that her hair was most pretty and that her eyes were marvelous, but that they needed to make sure that she was safe. Raven was too easy to recognize, just like Cyborg, even if Starfire much preferred them in their usual state. The emotions were so clear that there was no way Starfire could be lying, even a little bit. Starfire didn't even care that Raven wasn't all human. (Starfire wasn't all human, either, and Raven didn't think a single one of the monks on Azarath would dare be rude to her because of it. Only a couple of the monks had ever said that Raven only looked human, and that she was all demon inside, and Azar had made them stop, but Raven remembered.)

Starfire had taken two days to make everything right. Raven had never gone for so long without accidentally breaking something expensive, and not one dream had threatened to become a screaming nightmare that woke everybody up.

Starfire knew a special Tamaranean form of meditation. It felt a lot like the way that Raven usually meditated, but instead of thinking about nothing and making her mind as empty as the air around her, she was supposed to think about things. Raven was _supposed _to think about why her nightmares were scary, or why Starfire and Beast Boy and Cyborg made her happy, or even why she didn't like being with Azar. She could even think that she didn't like training on Azarath!

She and Starfire and Beast Boy had gone flying again after dinner. Cyborg promised to come watch her next time, but he hadn't said why he was sneaking away. Raven didn't know until the next morning that Cyborg had stayed up all night to make her bracelet.

Raven twisted her wrist, smiling a little when she heard the small chimes. It was weird to see her skin turn a different color, too, but she didn't mind. She looked a little like Robin, now, because her skin was almost exactly like his and her hair was black. Her hair looked the same other than that, though, and she wasn't going to gel it all up like his. Raven's eyes looked more blue than purple, which she didn't like nearly as much, but this way they all could go on trips with nobody knowing who they were. Cyborg had promised to make hologram-something rings for Beast Boy and Starfire, next, so they all could go out. He had offered to make one for Robin, too, but Robin hadn't wanted to go. He said that there was too much work for him to do at the Tower, so Cyborg didn't need to waste his time.

Raven thought that Robin didn't like her much, but it was no use telling anybody else. Starfire had instantly started saying that Raven and Robin were very good friends when she was older, but Raven thought that was the problem. Robin wanted her to be older again. He got the little fold in his forehead when he looked at her, just like Azar and a lot of the monks, the one that meant that he was unhappy. His emotions were the quietest in the Tower, and the few she could understand weren't good ones. Maybe he would feel nicer if her empathy was better, but he stayed away and she stayed by somebody else.

"Cyborg, look!" Raven pointed, not caring that she had only caught half a glimpse of the woman in the crowd. "There was somebody with purple hair! I saw her!"

Cyborg smiled. He didn't look away from the road, but she could see him in the mirror. It was still odd to look at him and see that his face matched on both sides. "There have always been a few people that dye their hair purple, but it's been much more popular in Jump City since you moved in. You have loads of fans around here."

"Really?"

"Really. Some of them even send you poems about how pretty you are."

Raven flushed, embarrassed, but it wasn't in a bad way. It wasn't like on Azarath, when people talked about her father and she wanted to hide in her room and never come out, or wished that she could sink right into the floor. This made her feel shy, but she didn't mind knowing more. "Do you have fans, too?"

"I usually get letters from people that like electronics. I get loads of mail from people interested in getting a better prosthesis—a fake limb, like a leg or a hand. Some of them were in explosions, like I was, some of them were in car accidents or got caught in a machine at a factory."

Raven stared at the rear view mirror, the panorama around the car completely forgotten. "What happened?"

"My parents were both scientists, and once in a while I'd help out in their lab. One time when I was fifteen, something went really wrong. The blast killed my mom and came really, _really _close to killing me, but my dad had access to a whole lot of replacement parts." Cyborg held out a hand where she could see it. The ring didn't move, but for a minute his entire arm looked normal again, and the only skin she could see was by his elbow. "It messed up some organs, too. My diaphragm is part-machine. That's- um- it's the big flat muscle that lets you breathe, right at the bottom of your ribs. My heart has an electronic backup, too, but theoretically my heart and lungs can work without outside electricity. I just haven't had the occasion to test that out yet."

Cyborg hadn't moved his arm back to the wheel yet, so Raven stretched forward to curl her hand around as much of his elbow as she could touch. That was the part where she could feel skin and metal. "The fans probably just don't know you really well, and probably think you're scary because you're big and you have really cool weapons and stuff." She settled back, and watched with interest when his arm turned back to being all skin-looking under the blue t-shirt that he'd put on. "Everybody on Azarath was scared of me, a little, because of Trigon. I don't think Azar was, but I don't think Azar really felt anything."

"They were wrong about you. You're a good kid," Cyborg said, and she could _feel _the purple and pink all through the words. "I'm glad that you and Star have been working so fast with the meditation. We'll have you teleporting in no time."

Raven's nose wrinkled in thought even before she stopped blushing at the high compliment. She knew what tele- meant, because the monks had said that she had telekinesis which meant she could make things move when they were far away from her, and they had told her what both parts of the word meant. The only port she knew about was at a seashore, though, and she'd just read about those in books. "Teleportation?"

"Oh, we've got to show you that—you can move between places just as fast as you can blink. We'll start you off nice and easy, but you have loads of cool things that you can do. I have no idea how to teach you a few of them, like healing, but we can work on that if you like."

"I can heal?" she asked, stunned.

"Yeah. You're really good at it. You even helped Robin out when there was something wrong with his head."

Cyborg seemed to understand that Raven needed the whole rest of the car trip to think about that. The monks had said that demons didn't have any powers that could help people, and none of them had ever been happy if she interrupted to say she was just half demon. If she could heal (and she _could, _because Cyborg wouldn't lie to her), then they might have been wrong about everything. Even her mother might have been wrong, but Raven shied away from those thoughts. She wasn't ready to even think about her mom.

The car wasn't nearly as pretty as it had been the first time she saw it. It looked all dirty and dented and like one of the little cars she'd seen all over the roads. Beast Boy and Starfire had giggled when they saw the (very temporary, as Cyborg had insisted) new exterior for the T-car, and even Robin had smiled. It was a dark grayish green color that she would like a lot better without the dirt, but the important part was that it didn't look at all like the T-car. That was why they could drive it right to the mall and park in a gigantic stretch of concrete, like the roof, but this concrete had yellow lines and cars all over it.

In the mall, Raven kept a very, very tight grip on two of Cyborg's fingers. His hand was too big for her to hold onto that, and he had promised that she wouldn't be able to dent the metal that she could feel under her hand. It was weird, because even though his hand looked all different, it felt the same as before. Cyborg had very warm hands, and the metal didn't feel at all like she would have thought.

She was distracted thinking about how much bigger his hands were than anybody she'd met before when somebody crashed right into her. She stumbled backward, losing her grip on Cyborg, and fell right on her butt. It didn't hurt much, even though the tall, skinny teenager had bumped her hard enough that she might get a bruise, but the surprise was too much. Raven's powers had slipped out of her control for just half a second, and she cringed to hear the sound of glass cracking behind her.

Cyborg had to go all the way down to one knee to reach her, but he didn't feel mad at all. Raven hadn't realized that her eyes were clenched shut, but when she hesitantly opened them, Cyborg didn't look even a little upset with her. "You alright, Rae?" he asked quietly. "Just bumped a bit?" She nodded, surprised all over again that he was just as nice as before, and squeaked in shock when he scooped her up.

Starfire had picked her up so that they could fly back to the Tower, and Beast Boy had caught her, so this was the third time she remembered somebody holding her. Raven leaned against his shoulder before Cyborg thought that he should put her down, but she didn't need to worry. He waited until she was comfortable, and she got to stay right next to him while he fixed things.

The glass had been on one of the many little stores that were in the middle of the mall's corridors. They were little stalls with things all over, and this one had tiny fish with tiny plants in tiny tanks. She could cover up the glass on a side with one hand. She looked over the stall nervously, but all of the animals were fine. The big piece of glass that kept people from reaching just any of the little aquariums was cracked, though, and Cyborg counted out enough money to pay for the damage before the stall vendor had finished protesting that it wasn't her fault. Cyborg agreed that it wasn't, but said that he could afford to pay for it. The stall vendor only accepted if they would come look a little later, when things weren't so hectic, and Cyborg had agreed.

"It really wasn't your fault. I should have seen that guy," Cyborg said. She was close enough to his head that he could say the words very quietly, even in all the crowds, and he hadn't shown any signs of putting her down yet. "Anybody would get startled, getting knocked over like that, and all of the tanks were fine. Even if one of those had cracked, fish can handle being in the open air for the minute it would have taken him to put them into water."

"S'okay," Raven said, not caring that her words were muffled against his shoulder. Nobody had been hurt, and they could fix the glass, and Cyborg wasn't even frustrated. "I didn't even see the store with all the people in the way. I kind of liked the tank with the really weird little animals."

"We'll go look later," Cyborg promised. "Where else do you want to go? We do need to get you some clothes, so you're not left with a leotard and Starfire's clothes forever, but we can go to the bookstore, a restaurant... whatever you want."

Raven looked down at her purple skirt. It came down to her knees, just about, and they'd needed to tuck in the sides so that it would fit her, but she liked Starfire's skirt. Purple was an okay color, and blue and green. She wore black a lot, but she didn't think it would be bad to have a few more black shirts. Maybe she could match Beast Boy if she found one with some purple on it. She could even get shirts that said things, like a lot of little kids in the mall were wearing, because Cyborg said that she got to pick whatever she liked.

He did put her down when they found the store with clothing in it just for little girls. Just one rack of shirts had more color than everybody in the monastery wore, and both of the women behind the sales counter smiled at her when she carefully touched the hem of a purple t-shirt. It was much, much softer than she had thought.

"Becca" and "Zoe" were both very nice. They thought that she was adorable, and that it was extremely sweet of her cousin to take her shopping after the airport lost her luggage. Raven didn't even have to go through the entire store, which had so many things that she didn't know where to start. They asked which colors she liked, and figured out what size she would probably wear, and they had a whole stack of things for her to put on in the fitting room. They said she didn't need to take the leotard off, which made her feel better, because the little room was weird and made her feel like she didn't have any room at all.

It was painted all white, and had hooks all over the walls and a little chair in the corner, and there was a huge mirror on the back of the door. They said that she could stay right in the little room and make a pile of what she liked and what she didn't, and that they could find things in other colors and sizes if she wanted, and then they had left her to try things on. Cyborg was sitting right outside the door, which made her feel very safe. Maybe that was her problem. If something broke, then Cyborg would take care of it, and he wouldn't be mad. She didn't need to worry about her powers all the time. Raven had just put on a pair of blue pants that Cyborg called "jeans" when she tripped over the small pile of shirts that didn't fit. Raven threw out her hands, trying to catch herself so that she wouldn't crash into the wall, and then something went wrong.

She didn't crash into the wall, which was good, but maybe it would have been better to bump her head. Instead, Raven fell through wall, landing on the tile in a quiet little hallway and bumping her knees. She stood up slowly, trying to figure out where she was. She didn't remember any of these stores. There was a place with a scary-looking picture of a woman, with NAILS in huge glowing letters, and another one with all kinds of things that Raven didn't recognize that all looked dreadfully expensive. One odd store had only a few dresses scattered through it, with room for twenty times as many hangers, and the wall behind her only had signs for Rest Rooms with weird little stick-drawings on either side.

If she walked around to the big crowded hallway, then she could probably find the store with all the little girl clothes again. Cyborg hadn't interrupted her for the last twenty minutes, and probably wouldn't know she was gone at all. Raven looked around to see if people were watching before pressing her hand against the wall, trying to remember how she'd done it just a minute before, but the wall felt solid and a little cold. Careful to not trip over the long hem of her jeans, Raven started walking toward the main hall.

She had every intention of walking right until she found Cyborg again, but when she walked along the edge of the big moving crowd of people somebody pushed her right into the entrance of a store. Just one look at its wares was enough to erase thoughts of clothing or even of finding Cyborg right away.

There were more books than Azar's private library, and these were nothing like the books bound in plain brown leather and kept shut with locks and spells. These books had color all over them, and pictures, and even the titles looked fun. She wandered away from the display near the front, which showed women with very little shirts and men with no shirts at all, and didn't pay any attention to the section of books with stern-looking men and women (with the occasional smiling person) on the front. There were stores for children's clothing and tiny little fish and even for nails. It made sense that an entire store of books would have a section meant just for kids.

Time didn't matter at all. She wandered through the aisles, picking up some books and just touching others, and reading the backs of any that looked interesting. Azar had always given her boring, useful books with plain gray or brown covers about controlling her emotions and remaining in deep meditation. She could tell just by the titles and pictures that those books were nothing like the few stories on Azarath. People read these things because they wanted to _feel _things, and just touching one of the bright covers would be enough for Azar to sentence her to extra meditation for a month. She knew that the Titans would buy her more books, even without asking. They liked it when she was happy.

Raven was just starting to realize that Cyborg would probably let her look at the books again, and that he might even be able to tell her which of the hundreds of books she would like, when she was interrupted by a stranger.

"You lost, kid?"

Raven turned, a book still in her hand, and looked up. The woman was not very tall, even if everybody looked gigantic to Raven. The lady had shiny brown hair and dark blue eyes that looked like they might just have a tint of violet, but maybe that was because her shirt was a really pretty shade of purple.

Her emotions were nice, even if she was a stranger. The woman had yellow and pink all mixed together with little hints of orange that were very bright. She felt more a little like Beast Boy, and nothing at all like the monks from Azarath. Raven didn't answer her question, but she didn't run away. The woman wasn't at all angry that Raven wasn't cooperating with an adult.

"Where's your mom or dad?"

Raven shrugged at that question. She wouldn't tell the truth, exactly, but she didn't have to lie. "Not here." What was so great about parents, anyway? Trigon was really bad, and her mother was always sad when Raven was around. She liked the Titans way better. Just thinking that someone would want her to be with one of her parents instead of the Titans made her voice fall as flat as it had been on Azarath. "I wanted to look around without Victor for a little. I'll go back in a few minutes."

The woman looked at her a little more closely, but all that happened was a lot of sparking yellow that meant curiosity. "It's dangerous for squirts to run around alone, you know that? Victor probably wouldn't be happy that you're doing this, if you had to sneak past him."

Raven scuffed her toe against the tile floor. The lady looked a little like her mother, with the dark hair and the dark blue eyes, but she felt completely different. Her mother was always very quiet, and her emotions all felt faded and unhappy when Raven was there. This person felt loud and cheerful inside, like she'd stay that way almost all the time. "It was kind of an accident, but it's not like I can't go to the store on my own." Nothing had happened. Nobody had even seen her come through the wall, and she'd been able to fight off _Trigon. _She didn't want the stranger to think she was a baby or anything. "I'm eight."

"Eight's a far cry from an infant, but not quite old enough to run around without any supervision at all." The woman's voice was very kind, which made the words sound friendly instead of like a lecture. "People around here aren't very nice; some of them get nasty ideas. If anyone tries dragging you somewhere you don't want to go, you scream and yell and raise as much of a fuss as possible. Sound good?"

Raven studied the distance between them. The woman could grab Raven's arm, if she wanted, but Raven didn't think that she did want to take Raven off alone somewhere. "What about you?"

The woman shrugged. "I'm not planning to drag you anywhere, kid. I was going to head over to the register, maybe, and I'd buy a book if one catches your eye, but I think you can tell what I'm after here. I think you're interesting, and I think you deserve a little time without people breathing down your neck.

"I don't know who you are," Raven said.

The stranger only grinned. "Call me Sadie."

Raven studied the woman's emotions carefully. They were all strange, but not bad. She felt a little bit like Beast Boy and Robin all mixed together. Robin was a little scary, maybe, but he was her friend when she was older. "That's not your name."

"No, it's not, but Stone will get it eventually. You've got some kind of extra sense going on, right?" Sadie only felt a little curious. She wasn't digging for information, and had not given any signs of a threat. "We're not the best of friends when you're all grown up, but I don't mess with kids."

Raven looked from her potential enemy to the shelves of books. If it had been candy, she could have politely walked away like Starfire had told her, but Raven had been clutching a book in her arms for the last five minutes. She liked the cover, and the words on the back had made the book sound good, and there had been a little card on the shelf. Somebody that worked at the bookstore said that every child should read the book. "You would still buy this book for me?"

"Definitely," Sadie said, glancing at the title. "Excellent choice, by the way. Let's get this paid for and get you back to the clothing store before Stone blows a circuit."

The people at the register were very nice. Sadie chatted with them while she paid, leaving Raven to study her new book. Later, she would realize that it would have been polite to talk with her new friend, but she barely realized where they were going on the walk back through the crowd. She only paid attention when she saw the clothing store ahead.

"There you go, kid. It looks like Stone hasn't even noticed that you're gone."

Raven felt shy all over again, but clutching the book reminded her of her manners. "Thank you." The rest of her words were trapped inside, maybe, because Raven couldn't deal with all of her emotions at the same time yet, but Sadie didn't feel even a little upset to not hear anything else.

"You're very welcome," Sadie said quietly. "If you get into trouble... I mean it. I don't mess with kids."

Raven was very young, maybe, but she understood that tone of voice. It meant that the words were a promise, one that wasn't going to be broken. With the book still in her arms, she didn't spend her time wondering how Sadie had known which store that Raven had left, or why the woman kept calling Cyborg 'Stone.' A teenager would have thought all of these things, but Raven was content with her book and being back where she was meant to be.

Sadie nodded to her before walking into the big part of the hall, disappearing into the crowd before Raven could think of pointing her new friend out to Cyborg. Raven had taken several steps into the store before realizing that it might have been a better idea to think of an explanation first, before Cyborg saw her coming in from the mall, wearing jeans over her leotard, and with a book in her arms.

Cyborg was staring at her from his chair outside of the fitting room, and the two salesgirls were staring, and Raven again felt the kind of embarrassment that made her wonder if she actually could sink into the floor.

"Um, hi," she said, feeling that words were suddenly inadequate.

Cyborg stood up very slowly. His emotions were all flat, since he was so surprised, but Raven wasn't nervous. He was probably very shocked that she had gotten past him somehow, and he thought that she'd been out in the mall alone. She held out her book when he was close enough, but he didn't pay any attention to it at all. He picked her up again, and when his emotions started again, they were purple and pink with a blot of gray that was very quickly turning into yellow. "You are the sneakiest little kid on the planet," he said, sounding older all of the sudden.

He wasn't mad. Not at all. That was _pink, _like Starfire, not the pale red that meant somebody was very disappointed in her. If she wasn't wrong... Raven leaned her head against his shoulder, and she could feel him trying not to laugh.

"My parents told me that someday, somebody would find a way to be more trouble than I was," he said, speaking loudly enough that the salesgirls could hear, too. "They're always right." They laughed, and Cyborg chuckled, and Raven knew that it was going to be okay. Cyborg was smart enough that he could do anything, like make jewelry that let them go right to the mall without any of the fans noticing, or make a joke that let people think she was so sneaky that she had gotten all the way through the store without anybody noticing that her door was open.

The clothes were right where she had left them, and she already had a pile that would let her go three weeks without wearing the same thing twice. Raven didn't really want to try on any more clothes, or risk that she would fall through the wall again, so she helped Cyborg carry them over to the counter. He had leaned over to whisper that they'd need to talk in the car, later, but that was okay.

He let her carry one of the bags, even though he could have put all of them on one of his fingers and been fine, and on the way out he remembered to stop at the place with the little aquariums. The man that worked in the stall insisted that she should pick one, since she had been the one to be hurt, and that generosity should always be rewarded. Cyborg carried that, too, because Raven was too nervous about dropping it.

She was enamored with the little world in the car, and her attention was so divided that Cyborg didn't ask why she had been wandering around alone. She would look at her book's cover from all angles, then let her bracelet jingle, then lean in close to see the strange little things Cyborg called 'shrimp' and the very small fish that would fit on her pinky nail and the weird little plants that lived in the water. There was a little hole in the top of the glass cube, just large enough to drop in food pellets, and that was all that they needed. The man at the stall had been very nice, and he had answered a lot of her questions about what he called an ecosystem and why the little tank really just needed food. She could ask Beast Boy the really hard questions later, like how many kinds of shrimp there were and if he knew what kind of fish she had and where they lived in the wild.

When she wasn't looking at her book or her bracelet or her new aquarium, she would peer up at the rearview mirror. Cyborg looked back at her every once in a while, and she usually pretended to be looking at the city, but she didn't really care if he knew she was watching him. Cyborg and Beast Boy and Starfire were nicer than anybody that she'd ever met, and all of them said that it didn't matter what happened. It didn't even matter if there wasn't a way for Raven to be sixteen again except to grow up the slow way. Starfire had said the first day that they would never, ever let someone take her away, but for the first time, Raven could believe it. They wanted her, and they didn't care if she broke things once in a while or didn't know how any of their chores worked or was inconvenient when only three of them could go out to fight.

She hadn't learned how to control too many emotions at once, yet, because it was scary to know that a mistake would put all of that emotional energy into something, and that was usually an accident. Raven cringed when the sudden rush of emotion reached its peak, dropping her book to cradle her hands protectively around the little tank, but the thin glass didn't crack. Instead, the emotion hummed all through her for a moment, pulsing in an agreeable way before dimming back down.

She held out her hand, and without even a little effort the book jumped up from the floor of the car and slid right into the crook of her arm. Cyborg hadn't even noticed, since he was moving them through a very complicated-looking mess of cars.

Her contemplative mood stuck with her until the T-car pulled into the garage, where both Starfire and Beast Boy were waiting for her. Beast Boy admired the little aquarium, Starfire exclaimed over just how many bags they had filled with clothing, and then there was just one question left.

Starfire picked the book up off of the car's back seat, reading the cover but making no move to open it. As much as she liked Starfire, Raven felt a little relieved. On Azarath, her mirror had been the only possession that Raven could call her own, and nobody would touch it because they would be trapped in her mind. She'd never owned something she wanted to keep for herself just because.

Starfire seemed to understand, because she handed the book to Raven. "What a wondrous idea, friend Raven! I know that you have always been most fond of reading, but did not think to recommend a store of books."

Cyborg coughed slightly, like he didn't really need to cough but just wanted everybody's attention. Sister Adelaide did that sometimes. "I was going to head that way when we were done shopping, but Raven's always a bit precocious." He tugged a strip of paper out of her book. Raven had thought it was an odd bookmark, but he had known there would be writing on it. "Somebody bought her a book, but I wasn't the one who did it."

Raven could _feel _the sudden bursts of yellow and gray, and suddenly felt shy all over that she had made all of them worry, but somehow she knew they weren't going to be mad. They would listen to her before they even thought about yelling, and they wouldn't call her devilspawn, and they wouldn't stand back and stay far in the background and not do anything when people said that they never, ever should have taken her in. They weren't like the monks, they weren't like Azar, and they weren't like her mother.

Raven opened the cover of the book, not at all surprised to see a note. She hadn't let it out of her sight for long at all, and Sadie had only kept it on the counter long enough to pay, but there was a string of numbers on the inside cover with Sadie's name scrawled in messy cursive underneath.

Children don't think in the same way that adults do. An adult would think it strange that someone knew just which shop that she had been visiting, or that a stranger had called a friend by an unfamiliar name. An adult would wonder about Sadie's rather firm declaration that she wouldn't mess with children, like that was something that had to be qualified. Raven, however, wasn't an adult. Sadie was the nice woman in the bookstore that had told her about strangers and bought her a book and walked her back to the clothing store after Raven accidentally fell through a wall. Just two more years on Azarath would have been enough to make her suspicious of all strangers, to wonder why anyone would be interested in her, but this Raven was eight, and for the first time surrounded by people that weren't at all afraid of her.

When they left the garage, Cyborg and Starfire carried her clothes, Beast Boy carried the small tank with the shrimp, and she carried the book that her older self's enemy had bought for her.

* * *

**Author's note: I have a long, long list of ideas for the book that Raven might have picked up in the store. Your suggestions are welcome and appreciated. Thanks for reading! **


	6. Chapter 6

_I thought that I was being too obvious with the identity of Ms. Sadie Hawkins, but this chapter will definitely clear it up. The action will pick up again later, as well as several revelations and Robin being less of a prick. _

**Chapter Six: Second Chances**

An hour after Starfire and Cyborg had cornered Robin in the garage, Beast Boy knocked on the half-open door and looked around for any signs of damage. Surprisingly, there were no signs of a lost tempers. The T-car was intact, with no signs of the hologram that had camouflaged it during the trip to the mall, and the bags from the clothing store were neatly lined up at the edge of one workbench. "Nothing looks broken, but Robin's all mission-faced and said that he'll order pizza in for dinner," Beast Boy said from the doorway. "I think he's going to forget, though. The talk didn't go so well?"

Cyborg waved Beast Boy in, then turned back to a pair of computer monitors displaying numbers too fast for most people to comprehend. "He just about bit Starfire's head off," Cyborg said. "It was a good thing that you had Raven out of there fast, because you didn't need to be an empath to feel the temperature go down in here when I told him that Rob wasn't doing so hot with little-Raven."

"Raven was pretty distracted. I think it took five minutes before she calmed down enough to tell me anything. For a while, she kept asking everything that I know about animals that live in water, and after I morphed to show her the different animals in her aquarium she wanted to see just about everything else." Beast Boy collapsed into the chair in front of the workbench. Changing wasn't such a big deal, maybe, but it started getting very tiring after thinking of new animals for forty straight minutes. "Good news, she's completely okay with the difference between butterflies and moths now, and we're working on reptiles and amphibians."

Cyborg smiled. Trust Beast Boy to end up being the most educational out of all of them. "Did she let you see her book?"

"Right before I left, yeah," Beast Boy said. "She was _way _too impressed that nobody threw a tantrum when she cracked some glass at the mall. Somebody definitely should have grabbed her when she was young and refused to give her back, but Rae's a lot happier now. I don't think she's settled on a favorite person, but at least the two of us and Star are ranking up there with Sadie."

"Who's Sadie?"

"Her friend from the bookstore. Maybe she can make up for Robin being a jerk."

Cyborg shook his head. "That's the mild term. He went nuts when Star and I tried to talk to him, kept thinking we were criticizing him because he wasn't babying her. She doesn't need babying, she wants friends. I don't know why Robin's holding back so much on that."

"I'll try talking to him later, not that it'll work, but he's acting like _Mento,_" Beast Boy said with disgust. He didn't invoke his old leader's name lightly. "Maybe he thinks he's acting like Batman. Raven's on the roof, at least, so she won't pick up any of the backlash. She and Starfire are practicing how to use portals."

"He'll figure it out eventually, and it'll be a big production with nobody else helping," Cyborg predicted. "Starfire can keep Raven calm, but I think Rae's starting to get nervous that Robin doesn't like her. She went quiet for a second when she saw Robin, earlier... maybe it is for the best she met a stranger that liked her. That can undo whatever Robin might be doing."

Beast Boy hoped it would be enough. Robin had only come up once when they were hanging out, but it was easy as breathing to tell that Raven was intimidated by her friend. "Raven's friend signed the inside cover of her book, and she left a phone number. It's a weird number, though, so maybe she's from out of the country."

"If Raven wears herself out enough to settle down, maybe we can call her friend together," Cyborg said. "What's the book about?"

"I know Roald Dahl wrote it, but I don't remember the title. It's about some little girl, and Raven's probably going to lose a couple hours of sleep tonight reading it."

"That wouldn't be the first time, and it's nothing that I didn't do a lot when I was a kid." Cyborg looked away from his check on the security feeds for a moment, remembering the important question. "What's her friends name? Sadie something?"

"Sadie Hawkins. I already programmed the number into Raven's com."

Cyborg stared at his friend, security feeds completely forgotten. "Sadie Hawkins. You're kidding, right? No, your jokes are terrible-"

"Hey!" Beast Boy protested, mostly from reflex.

Cyborg shook his head. He was just being paranoid, that was all. "Okay. Is there any chance 'Sadie' something about Raven, more than just a lost little kid in the mall?"

"Raven didn't say much, but Sadie took her right back to the clothing store without being told where she should find you."

Cyborg's fingers tapped against his left forearm, right over the screen for his communicator. "B, I need a favor. Could you keep the details to yourself for a little? I think I know who it was, but if I'm right, it's going to make a mess we don't have time to deal with."

Beast Boy frowned. "Um, okay. The number is on Raven's com, so it should be easy enough to find. I'll go help out on the roof for a while, in case Star wants anybody else to catch."

"That'd be good, yeah," Cyborg said, already navigating through menus and planning what he would say. "I really appreciate this, BB." He heard Beast Boy leave, and the soft click as the garage shut, but his concentration was focused on the other end of his call.

Six seconds after Cyborg contacted the number, the connection opened with the faint sounds of a crowd rapidly fading into the background. "Hey, didn't think you'd call so fast," a familiar female voice said. "What's up?"

"'Sadie,' I presume?" Cyborg should have spent much more time on planning what to say. "I—um—well, this is kind of awkward. We haven't really talked in a while."

There were several seconds of near-silence, punctuated only by a few yells in the background. He thought she was going to hang up, and couldn't say that he would blame her.

When she spoke, Jinx sounded very tired. "At least you didn't decide to infiltrate trig. We have a test tomorrow. If you want to know motives, I don't mess with kids, and that's about all of it. Are we done now?"

"If you want, yeah, but..." Cyborg should have made himself wait at least ten minutes, not that he would have done any better. "I wouldn't do anything like that again, I learned the first time. I'm really sorry if I hurt people, and wish I'd thought of another way."

"Might've been the heroic thing to do." The words were harsh, maybe, but she didn't sound angry. Maybe Jinx didn't know what else to say to the guy that had ruined a school dance. "If that's all you wanted to say, I'm missing the trigonometry review."

"I do want to talk. I mean, if you're okay with it. Maybe—um-do you like coffee?"

"Occasionally," she said, as if she were waiting for him to say that it was a bad idea. "Talk about something other than the big bad criminal threatening the cute and innocent and I might consider it."

"Raven was really happy she made a new friend," Cyborg said quietly. "Don't ask me how she ended up this age, but she's thrilled with the book."

"Find out how she ended up pint-sized?" Jinx repeated, voice rocketing up half an octave. "That's the last thing I want to know, are you kidding me? With my luck you'd throw it our way, just like the creepy pie-lady. Thanks for that, by the way," she continued, sounding like the girl that he'd known at HIVE Academy, not the girl that threw hexes at Teen Titans. "We're still split between toilet papering your Tower with some kind of roof-mounted cannon and Saran-wrapping your car, in case you're wondering."

Cyborg laughed, surprised that it could feel easy all over again. She hadn't accepted him immediately, maybe, but she had trusted him. He should have called ages ago. "Raven's still thrilled that she met you. You can probably guess she hadn't met many cool people yet."

"She'll like the book, I think, even if she's past the reading level." Jinx seemed just as happy to lead the conversation to much safer ground. _"Matilda_ is about a smart little girl with freaky powers that scare a lot of people, but she ends up okay."

Cyborg would have to look the book up later, or maybe he could ask Raven. "She's very happy with the book, even if we haven't given her time to read it yet. She's figuring out how teleporting works. I thought it was a little early, but Starfire insisted. We're all adjusting, still, but so far Star's known exactly what Raven needs."

"How's Boy Blunder doing?"

"Um..."

"Uh huh. Thought so," Jinx said. He could almost hear her roll her eyes. "Seriously, one of you needs to remove his head from his rectum before he dislocates something."

"He doesn't try to make it hard," Cyborg said defensively. "He's just had it pretty rough."

"He's the mini-Batman with an inferiority complex about being the small version," Jinx retorted. The reply sounded like she'd made the case before, and it was odd to think that the HIVE might talk about the Titans. Not about battles or ways to not be detected, but about personality and their pasts.

Maybe that was why Cyborg tried a second time. "You know, we could even talk about half of this in public and just sound like groupies ourselves. You have any favorite spots for coffee?"

Jinx hesitated, again, but this felt like a very different kind of pause. "You're going to want a rain check on that. I don't know anything yet, but there's something going down tomorrow night. Headmistress says my team's getting pulled in, and that usually means you guys. You've been two short the last couple films I've watched. I know that much, but there is no news coming from the top. That's not usually a good sign."

"Look, I don't want to get you in trouble or put you against your team, but... maybe we can avoid getting into a situation where people get hurt," Cyborg suggested carefully.

"I'm making a living here." Jinx's tone was thoughtful, without any trace of the scathing dismissal he had been expecting. "My team knows that I won't support anything that puts a hero in the hospital, when that'd just make everybody upset. Bad press, bad karma, bad habit of making other heroes really want to put you away."

"Good move for PR. Anything I can do for you, in exchange? Something not completely illegal," he clarified quickly.

Jinx laughed, not sounding remotely offended. "Sure, take all the fun out of it," she teased. "Don't even _think _about repeating the trick from last time and we might even be friendly."

Cyborg had no idea what the repercussions would be, and was sure that Robin would flip his lid, but this was the right thing to do. "I'd really like that, Jinx. No tricks this time, I promise."

Jinx was walking, again, because the increasing background noise had faded away again. "Class is out, and I'm not losing my rep again. I'll call you about coffee, I guess. Sometime."

"Looking forward to it, Sadie."

He knew she was smiling. Her voice always took on a different tone when she was. "Don't think I won't make you pay for both of us, Stone." The connection cut off with a click, after that, leaving no time for something as typical as 'goodbye.'

Cyborg didn't pay nearly enough attention to dinner until he realized just what they were eating. Slightly-overcooked noodles with from-the-jar spaghetti sauce and microwaved broccoli wasn't the most difficult meal, maybe, but somehow he had missed the announcement that Raven had helped make all of it. That was enough to distract him from analyzing just what Jinx could have meant, with a big problem the next night, but he didn't want to talk about that when Raven and Starfire kept asking Beast Boy about the potential shapes for pasta.

Beast Boy had been right again. Getting macaroni and cheese with noodles shaped like cartoon characters had been brilliant. Beast Boy and Starfire solemnly promised that they would make macaroni the next night, and Starfire had very easily convinced all of them to watch the appropriate cartoon beforehand. Cyborg had never seen it before, but Starfire seemed familiar enough with the plot and Beast Boy was happily introducing Raven to the many characters. Robin, of course, was in his office.

"Tell you what," Cyborg said, just before the first commercial break was over. "I need to talk to Robin about a few details of an operating system switch I want to make, but I'm going to try convincing him to come out for a movie afterward. Raven, you're in charge of figuring out what we want to watch. Sound good?"

That would leave him twenty minutes or so, which just might be enough. It was past time that Robin joined the rest of the team in helping Raven feel happy, and that had nothing to do with extended research projects about how to turn her back to sixteen.


	7. Chapter 7

_The next chapter is mostly complete in draft, and this series of conversations was one of the sticking points for the rest of the series. If you have any questions about the background I'm using, please use the reviews or PMs to let me know. More will be explained in the next few chapters, for people that don't already know about Robin's out-of-mask past.  
_

**Paved Paradise  
Chapter Seven: Time to Change  
**

To say the least, Cyborg's attempt to talk with Robin was not going well. The first minute had been simple enough, as Robin only needed a warning about when the various components of the Tower's computer systems would be upgrading themselves, but talking about Raven had been a disaster. Robin still was defensive from the earlier would-be confrontation, and did not seem to care that he had almost driven Starfire to tears. Instead, Robin was even more firmly entrenched in piles of odd-looking books and illuminated only by the glare of several computer screens.

Cyborg's second try at bringing Raven's emotions into play had been very firmly shot down, with language that Starfire wouldn't have understood, so Cyborg changed tactics. He leaned against one of the walls, not caring that his bulk shifted several articles that had been meticulously pinned into place. "So. If we aren't going to talk about why you're making Raven nervous, or the part where you upset Starfire bad enough that it took a hug from Raven to cheer her up, let's talk about progress on your solo crusade."

"Don't start, Cyborg." Robin didn't look up from yet another thick and rather grisly looking tome, which he was reading by the dim light of his computer screen. That was enough illumination to see several suspicious-looking brown stains along the margins of the book. Was there some kind of rule that a book about magic would be laughed out of the creepy bookstores if it wasn't coated with some kind of sketchy substance?

"Too late for that, Rob. Reading by that light is terrible for your eyes, anyway." Cyborg didn't move a muscle, but the lights to the small office flipped on just a thought later. There were advantages to being cybernetic, and one of them was catching the attention of single-minded teammates. "Robin. My brain got spliced with a computer, and you're cutting me out of the research."

"I delegated a little differently." Robin had yet to look at him, but voice-stress analyzers were pretty useful considering the wide array of samples they could pull from. Robin hadn't been sleeping much, based on the light patterns in this office, and the computer activity had only been dwindling for five hours a night since Raven kicked her father's butt and stayed fun-sized in the aftermath.

Robin was exhausted, and that went triple if he'd already admitted to needing backup. "Somebody from the League?" Cyborg asked casually, like he always asked people if they had the Justice League doing their research.

"Better. B—Oracle," Robin corrected, so fast that the initial sound might have been lost on anyone else, "owes me a favor. She doesn't like magic, since the computer-based records are contradictory at best, but she wanted to know why on earth she was seeing mild signs of activity from Slade's accounts when he was very dead, last she heard. We traded information."

That would cause trouble in time, of course, but maybe it would take Slade a while to lick his wounds. Slade had already partnered up with _Robin, _if only to double-cross Trigon, so maybe they could do without the megalomaniac for a whole month. "Easier question first, then," Cyborg said. "Are there any records of people spontaneously turning into children?"

"Oracle found one unconfirmed case, but there was no sign of how the affected individuals returned back to normal. Her sources on magic said that spells like that are usually highly individual, but we'd need Raven to figure out how to reverse this." Robin slammed the thick book shut, narrowly avoiding his other hand. That alone was enough to convince Cyborg that enough was enough. Robin was never that clumsy.

"The good news is that little kids are way easy, and Raven already knows more about magic than you do," Cyborg said bluntly, finally finding his way through Robin's latest attempt at a firewall. They periodically tried to outdo each other with the security on these computers, but Robin had the disadvantage of defense. Eventually, some trick of Cyborg's was going to work, and then Robin would have to begin all over again. Robin's monitors winked into hibernation, one by one.

The truly odd part was that Robin didn't even look angry. He had been working himself much too hard, if he didn't even fight when Cyborg let the computers take a break.

"Come watch a movie with us. You need time to relax, the way you're wound up, and Raven hasn't felt anything positive from you the entire time she's been here." Cyborg held out an arm, silently offering a hand up. It was a pretty weak metaphor, maybe, but Robin had never been one for figurative language.

For once, Robin took the hand up. He was frowning, again, but this looked more contemplative than self-condemning. "She told me once that it took her ten years to separate her emotions from what other people projected. I guess I haven't been good company in the past few days."

That should have been all of it for the night. Robin had finally lost the deep-seated tension at the base of his neck, someone had just put the common room's television onto the video channel, and the five of them could have a halfway-normal night. Robin would have put in the effort, the team would have been pleased to see him trying, and Raven had been very forgiving so far. That might have been all of it, except for their reception.

Beast Boy had taken his usual place, leaving room for Cyborg to sit at the edge of the couch. For once, Starfire was directly next to Beast Boy, with Raven curled against her other side. Raven looked younger than ever, in matched blue pajamas and with a children's book propped against her knees. She glanced up at Robin and Cyborg, when they entered the room, then immediately clambered off the couch to sit next to Beast Boy. That left her rather squashed, when Cyborg gingerly took his usual spot at the end, but she didn't seem to care.

Robin was left with a little too much room on his end of the couch, but no one said anything. Raven was blushing, slightly, and intently staring at her book to avoid any questions. After several seconds, Cyborg started the movie.

All of them had been preparing for an awkward conversation when the credits were over, and not even the familiar plot of the cartoon (chosen because Raven-at-sixteen had rather begrudgingly agreed that the storyline had merit) could lessen the feeling entirely. Raven did that herself, when they looked away from the movie to find her asleep, using the crook of Cyborg's arm as a pillow.

Starfire picked up Raven's book, which had slid to the floor at some point during the movie. Cyborg very carefully stood, shifting until Raven was draped against his shoulder. It took very little effort, considering that he could comfortably carry her in one arm when she was twice as tall, but she barely stirred when she resettled against the harder surface.

"Raven is quite exhausted," Starfire whispered. "Cyborg and I will be sure that she is well-settled. Sweet dreams, friends."

Robin had expected Beast Boy to join them, but instead his green teammate stayed on the couch. Neither of them said anything until the door had shut behind the odd procession—Raven passed out against Cyborg's shoulder, and Starfire flying after them with _Matilda _at hand.

"Your turn, huh." Robin couldn't find the energy to be angry with the apparent setup, and was already planning apologies to Cyborg and Starfire. They had been right. Raven hadn't said a word, but the expression on her face had been all too clear. She was afraid of him, or of his disapproval. "She was afraid of me. I didn't..."

"It's a little more complicated than that, but you're pretty close." For once, Beast Boy wasn't going to turn this into a joke. He always was more serious when Raven was upset. "She's not just a kid, she's an empath. She's in an unfamiliar place with weird people, and she feels everything we do. She doesn't feel good when you're around, because you don't feel good, and then it's a big nasty circle." Beast Boy did emphasize the speech with flailing hand motions, but that was the only attempt at humor.

Raven had very rarely talked about her abilities, which made more sense in light of their origin. It made it much harder for Robin to think about the very emotional aspect of the powers, when he usually saw only the physical. "I don't know what to say to her anymore," Robin said finally.

"She's eight," Beast Boy said, as if that were an answer. "I remember being eight really well. That's when I lost my parents, and when I moved from middle-of-nowhere Africa to Rhode Island. Just... talk to her. You two always get along, so it shouldn't be that hard. Ask her to help out with the magic part of things."

Robin shook his head, but couldn't dismiss the idea out of hand. He'd thought of it, too. "It didn't seem right. We're getting rid of Raven at eight to get her back to sixteen, technically, and I didn't want to make her feel like I only wanted her to go away."

Beast Boy smiled, and looked quite obviously ready to call it a night. "Exactly. You already know how she's going to react, because she's _Raven. _Just little."

"You make it sound easy."

"It kind of is," Beast Boy said, shrugging. He didn't look half as tired as Robin felt, so maybe there was something to the lackadaisical approach. "She doesn't have a lot of sarcasm yet, and she's way less guarded, but she's just as smart and curious about everything. Cyborg said that he was going to try finishing up all the hologram rings, tomorrow, and so far he has one that could work with either of us. Maybe you could get her out of the Tower, go on a field trip."

Raven trusted the other three, enough that it might not be possible for the girl to pick a favorite. So far, the only real distinguishing factor was that Robin hadn't made any effort to comfort her. Even when he'd found her, at first, he hadn't really talked to her. He'd grabbed at her, chased her through those destroyed temples and finally figured out that the small version of Raven didn't know a thing about him. They'd had a few moments in the journey up to the surface of Jump City, maybe, but that had been nothing in the face of Starfire's first proper greeting.

"We all should go," Robin said, finding all of the necessary pieces to the plan at once. He had ignored the e-mail routed through his Gotham account, but the pertinent details had all been in the subject line. Kid Flash had offered just two days ago to swing by as extra help. No one knew why they had been bringing only three Titans to all fights, but Kid Flash had offered to bring their strength to four. Robin could ask him to run a few patrols without explaining that one of them had always stayed back at the tower to keep Raven out of harm's way.

Beast Boy's forehead was wrinkled, when Robin stopped planning long enough to pay attention. That hint of recognition was all that Beast Boy needed to speak his mind. "If this is a mission, I am going to leave you out of Operation Breakfast tomorrow."

"It's not a mission. What's Operation Breakfast?"

"You're the best at cooking, and Raven really liked helping with dinner today," Beast Boy explained. "Well, you and Cy are both good, but you can cook things that aren't meat. Raven likes scrambled eggs."

Robin instantly revised his plan to include time for a full breakfast first. That would be better, anyway, because it was unlikely that any of them would eat a proper lunch. "Did we have any other plans for tomorrow? For anybody."

"Nope," Beast Boy said. "Well, Raven wants to finish her book, but even a present from her non-Titan friend wasn't enough to make her skip lessons at teleporting. She can get about four feet in a straight line, so far, but Starfire said that's more than enough for a starting lesson."

"She'll have a little time for that," Robin said, pacing as he thought. "What do you think about circuses?" he asked, stopping suddenly.

Beast Boy looked away, blushing slightly. "Speaking as somebody that acted as a sideshow freak for a couple weeks when I was eight?"

"Acrobats only," Robin promised instantly. He didn't know what to say to anything like that, not when all that he could glean about Beast Boy's history hadn't given a hint about sideshows. Later, he would have to look into small circuses in Rhode Island and their history of attractions. "Most circuses don't deserve to keep sea monkeys around, let alone something like an elephant." Let alone some kid that had just lost his parents, but they could deal with that later. Robin hadn't said much, maybe, but that statement relaxed Beast Boy's shoulders.

"I don't do clowns anymore, anyway," Robin offered. Beast Boy could have gone to bed, instead of giving Robin the chance. "My middle school had a clown in for an assembly, once, and I pulled the fire alarm. I got suspended for a few days, but Batman didn't care. The clown had a green wig and a purple outfit. Batman almost bodychecked the idiot into the wall." He still couldn't believe that any clown would let their costume look so much like Joker's, right in the middle of Gotham.

"I like acrobats-only shows," Beast Boy agreed cheerfully. "Clowns are way creepy even when you haven't run across the super-villain version."

Robin hadn't been back to the circus since he was eight, but maybe it could be an entire day of firsts. Somehow, he had never told Beast Boy about one of their biggest similarities. "I lost my parents when I was eight, too. I actually grew up at the circus."

"Dude, no way!" Beast Boy didn't sound particularly disbelieving."I grew up running around research labs in the middle of some remote African jungles. The circus probably would've been more fun. Just let us know if the circus gets to be a little much, and we can head right out the door."

Robin nodded, acknowledging the offer, but he was ready to go back. He'd been running away from the past for too long. "If you still have time to help... thanks," he said, when Beast Boy nodded. "Would you tell Cyborg to finish up all the holograms that he can? You and Star should go first, I'm a little easier to hide." He would be very easy to hide, if he had the guts to go through with a sudden idea.

"No problem." Beast Boy stretched, in directions that Robin was moderately sure non-contortionist humans weren't meant to bend. "Good night, Robin."

"Good night, Beast Boy, and- um- if you see Starfire, I really need to talk to her."

"Sure thing. I know we never really set it up, but I'll take care of any easy problems in Jump City that come up tonight," Beast Boy promised. "You and Starfire can have all the time you need. Rae stays pretty far asleep once she's out, lately, and Cyborg's going to be busy with his new project."

"Thanks, Beast Boy." Robin hadn't said that nearly enough, now that he thought about it. Maybe he had more to change than just his interactions with the pint-sized version of Raven.

"Anytime," Beast Boy said, waving sleepily before heading up to his room. "Good luck, fearless leader."

Robin had the sinking suspicion that he was going to need it.


	8. Chapter 8

_I am very glad that everyone was impressed with Robin's progress in the last chapter, because this chapter shows what happens when characters mature and think and try to grow up. Thanks to 99 for helping to reward Robin's character growth.  
_

**Paved Paradise  
Chapter Eight: Secrets**

Starfire was sitting at the very edge of the roof, her favorite place in the Tower when she needed to think. Robin would use his office or the gym, Cyborg had the garage, and Raven and Beast Boy tended to share the shores. Starfire didn't mind. When she felt too closed-in (Robin said 'claus-tro-pho-bi-a' was the English word for feeling that the walls and floors and ceiling would all press in on her and not stop pushing, even if the word had been Greek first), then she would come to the roof. She didn't want anything to do with walls when she already felt upset.

This time, she didn't feel any claustrophobia, but she didn't know what to think. Raven rarely spoke about Azarath or any of the monks, and much preferred to hear stories about their pasts. Starfire had kept to telling the nicer stories about her K'Norfka, and even the few fun stories from when she and Blackfire had still been close. When Raven would say things in return, she would usually say that she liked meditating with Starfire much better, or talk about the differences in local animals. She had never spoken of her mother. Even when Starfire and Raven had switched bodies, and they had shared many parts of their histories, Raven had said almost nothing about her mother.

Cyborg had carried their small friend back to her room, and Starfire had fussed with the blankets in a way that Beast Boy and Cyborg both insisted was a vital Earth tradition. The "tucking in" was an important ritual, and one that had been recreated for Raven without fail. Raven grew less guarded with them with each repetition, and for the first time she hadn't tried to insist that they didn't need to stay.

She had been rather lost in thought when she heard footsteps, and then Beast Boy called her name. "Starfire? You okay?" he asked. Like Raven and Robin, he always seemed to know just where the edge of the roof was, and he very easily took a seat beside her.

"I am well, friend Beast Boy, but I am most concerned that Robin will continue to intimidate Raven while she is small."

Beast Boy shook his head, grinning. "I'll leave the news for Robin, but... he's coming around, Star. He didn't realize that Raven was kind of afraid of him, and I think he was too nervous about messing something up with her. Robin already made a couple plans for tomorrow."

"Oh, wondrous!" Starfire had known that it would only be a matter of time, but had hoped that the time would not be too late. "I would have tried to speak with him again, otherwise. When we were putting friend Raven to bed, she said that we should not be so upset with Robin. He is like her mother, and he would call her to his office if he wanted to speak with her."

"She talked about her mom?" Beast Boy's surprise was entirely visible, much like Starfire's own. It seemed that she did not speak with him often enough, but they rarely had need for long conversations. Both of them understood each other far too well for such talks to be necessary. "Huh. Well, Robin's going to really try tomorrow, and Raven's never been one to hold a grudge for long. Robin also wanted to talk to you, if you're going to be up a while."

Starfire couldn't control the way that she blushed, but Beast Boy would never tease her for it. "I will be awake," she said, when she could keep her words calm. "Thank you for giving me the message, friend Beast Boy."

He also understood when she would rather be alone, all too easily. "Goodnight, Starfire."

"Have dreams that are sweet, friend Beast Boy," she replied, entirely unsurprised when he leaned forward until he fell off of the roof. The first time he had done such a thing, she had instinctively grabbed at his foot, only to find that she was holding a falcon of peregrine by one of its taloned feet. Since that mistake, she had only watched to be sure that her friend did transform well before he would hit the shore below. For that night, he chose a great long-necked bird. They had spoken of the many birds before, as Starfire understood why he would choose the certain kinds. The trumpeting swan was a very heavy bird, and its wings would break the arms of most humans. It was very difficult to lift from the ground as a swan, Beast Boy had told her, but while in the air, it flew far more nimbly than its shape would suggest. The swan might have been more elegant in its usual white feathers with the black beak, but she liked seeing the Earth's animals in all of the many shades of green.

When the door to the roof opened a second time, Robin's familiar footsteps sounded. Starfire had nothing of Raven's empathy, perhaps, but she thought that living with so many colors and feelings would overwhelm her. Most people seemed to forget that empathy wasn't only seeing the emotions of others. Empathy involved _feeling _those shadows of emotion, and perhaps that was why the monks had driven Raven to such a quiet existence. They had feared that she would not separate herself from the world, and that someone would find a way to influence her. Instead, they had nearly managed to make her entirely apart from the world, though one as unfeeling as Raven pretended to be would never have fought crime to make up for some imagined flaw intrinsic to her being.

Robin's steps were far lighter than they had been for the past several days, and he was in a good enough mood that he vaulted up onto the edge of the roof. When he was pondering things, he would move very slowly and with great care, but when he was happier, he would trust her to catch him if his experiments did not work. Once, when the roof was slick with ice, she had caught him by the shoulders before he had fallen. That had been the only time he so much as slipped. Robin was remarkably sure-footed.

"Friend Beast Boy said that you wished to speak to me," Starfire said, when it seemed that they might just look at the other for the entire night. She knew that he had some kind of plan in place, so it was usually best to let Robin keep to whatever schedule he had created. "I would have come down to your office, if you preferred."

"I probably need the fresh air." Robin glanced up, as if ready to teach her another of the earth's constellations, but the sky was veiled with clouds. "I might have been up a little earlier, but I ended up calling someone from home. I needed a little advice, and Alfred always has good advice."

"Is Alfred this man of bats?" Starfire asked, surprised at the sudden use of a name.

Robin smiled, but shook his head. "Alfred's the one that looked after both of us, and he always will say that Batman was ten times as much work as I was. I'd actually eat dinner when he put it in front of me."

Starfire repeated the name in her mind, still puzzled by the many ways that the English language would put letters into every order. Al-fred.

"Raven's settled?" he asked, shifting his weight slightly. It was a tiny motion, hardly visible, but he nearly always moved somehow when he felt uneasy.

"I believe that friend Beast Boy will check to be sure. Normally, one of us would tell her a story, but Cyborg was correct in guessing that Raven would prefer to read the book that her friend from the mall purchased for her." Starfire glanced at him, trying to decide if Robin needed to hear. Everyone else knew, now, so perhaps it would only be fair. "Raven is not afraid of you, as we had thought. She merely thought that you desired distance, and that you will call when you wish to speak with you. She compared you to her mother."

"That doesn't sound like a good thing."

It was odd to hear Robin sound unsure, but Raven's past was quite complicated. "I fear that the best of intentions did not do well for Raven. Her guardians quickly realized that she was empathic, but she had the distinct hardship of being raised by stoic. They could have taught her to understand her emotions, or to control them. The stoic will always try to control everything, but it is nearly impossible to control all emotions without soon feeling nothing. It is most wonderful that Raven was able to find her way."

"Was her mother there?"

Starfire frowned, staring out at the horizon. "I am unsure. There have been very few mentions of her, and I believe that Raven's feelings are conflicted. She was trained to not think about people and events that left her with such tangled emotions."

"I don't think I can picture that," Robin admitted, following her gaze out to the distance. "Beast Boy and I were both talking about losing our parents really young. Batman was there the night my parents died, and I was just about half-trained already."

Starfire's eyes were wide as she turned to stare at her friend. In just several heartbeats, he had shared more personal information than ever before. "I am most grieved to hear the loss of your parents, Robin, and of Beast Boy's. I share a similar past."

"Cyborg used to be a normal guy, too. Track star. He told me once that besides not scaring people on the street, he really misses being fast. I looked up the awards, once, and he was one of the fastest freshmen California's ever going to have." Robin looked at her, finally, and long practice let her read the emotions despite the mask. "He also knew a lot about computers, just like Beast Boy knew a lot about animals all along. I've always known more about acrobatics than any reasonable person. I literally grew up in a circus."

"Are circuses the elaborate entertaining presentations involving multiple rings, strangely costumed people in small cars, odd animal maneuvers, and a host in a sequined tailcoat?"

"Got it in one. I have tickets to a circus, tomorrow." Robin looked close to unsure, so Starfire waited. He wasn't ready for her to ask questions yet. "There aren't going to be any animals, though, because most of the animals are treated really badly and Beast Boy would get upset. The- ah- people with the small cars are clowns, and I can't stand clowns after way too many encounters with Joker."

Starfire nodded, remembering the briefing when Robin had been first introducing them to likely nemeses. The Joker had made her wary from the first glance, with the dangerous glint of madness in his eyes. Starfire had not been distracted by the tooth-baring smile. "Will there be gymnastic feats and the acrobatics, then? When Beast Boy and I watched part of a circus on the television, I was most amazed to see how people could fly."

Robin was no longer sitting still, but did not seem agitated enough that a sudden departure was likely. "I think I still know how to do most of that. It's been years since I practiced, but I could do a quadruple somersault when I was seven."

Starfire was reasonably sure that she understood the term, and was quite sure that any translation would result in an impressive act. "Were your parents injured during the performance?" she asked hesitantly.

It took several moments for Robin to speak, and instinct led her to slip her hand into his. He squeezed her hand, hard, but it was of no trouble to one of her physiology. "Someone cut most of the way through the ropes," Robin finally said, his voice rough. "They were some of the best acrobats in the world, and I saw them falling. I was eight, too. I didn't want to remember what it's like, when everything's too crazy to be true. I went from having two great parents and living in the circus to being an orphan and not knowing why both my parents were gone. Right after that, I ended up getting adopted by Batman and raised by a superhero and his butler."

Starfire did not cry, but a touch more provocation might lead to tears. "So young," she whispered. She had not been so young when betrayed to the Citadel, the enemies of Tamaran. "It is fortunate that the Batman was there." She couldn't bear to think that he could have been lost, somewhere, or that some odd change of the past would have never let them meet.

"I should introduce you to Alfred, next time he calls to make sure I haven't managed to starve myself. Alfred said that it was good for Batman, too, since _he _lost his parents when he was about eight, and spent the entire rest of his life training and trying to get rid of crime." The words might sound casual, but the light in Robin's eyes made the casual offer as good as an oath. "I think Alfred was hoping that I'd decide to lead a more normal life, but I wouldn't change anything. Well, maybe I'd have come to California because I wanted to travel, not because Batman and I couldn't stop fighting. I'd call Alfred sooner, too."

Starfire heard the unsaid parts, as she always did when it came to Robin. Sometimes, he would let her say those last details for both of them. "I am most glad that you came to us," Starfire said, her voice quiet. "I am glad that it was you who freed me, and who allowed me to learn your language, and who taught me the ways of your people." She was very careful, when he laced his gloved fingers through hers, and rather amazed that he trusted her so easily. She was so strong, compared to humans, but he knew that she would be careful. "I wish to help you, Robin, with this or with anything else."

Robin looked at their hands, studying the two different colors of their gloves. "I can't tell you his name. I just... someone found out who Batman was, once. They broke into our home and broke Batman's back, and we didn't know if he'd be alright again."

"I understand, Robin," she promised. "I would never wish for your mentor to be harmed, and understand that the identity is to be protected."

Robin nodded, still staring at their hands, and seemed to be making some important decision. "Cyborg will only have time to finish four sets of holograms, for tomorrow, but all of us need to blend into the crowd."

Starfire had not expected that, and could not hide how much it hurt her to be excluded from the outing, but he was not looking at her face. She didn't speak until her voice sounded the same as always. "It is as we just said, friend Robin. Secrecy is most important. I will gladly stay behind to look over Jump City while you take Raven to the circus."

Robin shook his head quickly, eyes snapping up to make contact with hers. Sometimes, there was so much intensity in his expressions that she could forget the mask entirely. "No! Starfire, nobody's staying behind," he insisted, holding one of her hands in both of his. "Cyborg's already fitted for a set, Raven's won't work for anyone else, and it took all of last night to make a hologram projector out of an elastic material so that it can stay with Beast Boy during transformations. Cyborg's going to finish yours tonight, Starfire. He had the beginnings of it started, because he knew that you were more likely to take Raven out to see the city."

"I am glad, certainly, but I cannot understand." If all of them would go, but there would only be four rings, then secrecy would be quite compromised. The alternative was too much to consider. Her heartbeat was annoyingly conspicuous, when she would rather direct her focus to her teammate. "You will go without your mask, then?"

"I'll do something different with my hair, too, and that should be enough."

Despite the brave words, Robin's cautiousness was quite obvious. Starfire crossed her fingers in the hand away from her good friend. "If you like, you could show me your face, first, to become more used to such a disguise?" she suggested, trying to calm the parts of her that knew this was a subterfuge and quite selfish besides. She didn't care, because if Robin was going to remove the mask, then she wanted very much to be the first to see his true face.

"It's not that I don't trust everyone else, but it would have felt wrong to talk about this with any of them before we talked," Robin said, rubbing at his temple, just an inch from the edge of the mask. "We always talk about stuff like this."

Starfire could have told him that she was honored, or named the bond between them with its Tamaranean title, but they would have time for such conversations later. The slow mustering of courage was plainly visible around the edges of the mask, and she hated to make it seem that she was rushing him or forcing such an occasion. Her conscience would never allow her to take advantage of any feelings that he may have for her.

Her patience was rewarded just seven fast heartbeats later, when the mask fell into his hands, and then to the cement behind them.

The mask was rather small, but it had obscured some of the most distinct parts of the face. It had also put Robin's eyes entirely into shadow, and now she could imagine why. Surely blue eyes that bright would have been recognizable to all of Gotham on just one viewing. Her hand had moved without her direction, but it seemed quite appropriate to dare touching the line of his jaw. "Robin, you are beautiful," she whispered, unable to contain the words. She bit her lip afterward, realizing how it must sound. "I fear that is not the appropriate description."

Robin blushed slightly, but did not look angry or ill at ease. "It's not the usual for guys, but I do look a lot like my mom. I can show you a picture, sometime." With the mask gone, it was even easier to read the utter earnestness of that easy promise. She really would learn more of his family, and of the circus, and of all the things that had shaped his life.

"I will be most happy to learn anything you will share." Starfire's words were promises, too, and the quiet volume had kept them close by necessity. She had drawn very near to better study his unmasked face, and could not help thinking that one more impulse may yet go her way. Even if she were wrong, he would not be cruel to her, and she was almost certain that she was right.

For all of her worries beforehand, about the potential collision of noses and the correct tilt and the many other things that several movies had emphasized, it was quite easy to kiss Robin. She might have just pressed their lips together, but he responded just a heartbeat later as if he had never been surprised. It was mostly an accident to pull him closer, which ended with him on her lap and both of them floating five feet above the edge of the roof.

Eventually, it seemed rather necessary to breathe, but Robin surprised her again. He had not looked at the forgotten little mask left on the roof, but he was looking at the stars. The inconvenient clouds had left them surrounded by starlight, and the moon was bright enough that the ocean reflected its light.

"If you're not tired... it's already dark, I'm not tired at all, and you said that Raven did most of the work today," Robin began, though she could not understand why. "Do you want to go flying?"

Starfire beamed, and did not attempt to restrain the boundless joy that sent them soaring ten feet higher with no conscious effort. "It is a most wondrous night for flying, and there is no need to wake over-early tomorrow. Friend Raven has been sleeping in as of late, and it would be a shame to interrupt her slumber." It was a very thin justification, perhaps, but she had kissed Robin, he had kissed her back, and there hadn't been a mask between them. Starfire was having the best day of her life, and that was even before knowing that Robin and Raven would reconcile, and that all of them would be able to have fun participating in an activity as if they were not superheroes. Sometimes, the greatest joys were the kinds of things that just anyone could feel, not just Tamaranean superheroines with the best teammates and the best friend in the world.


	9. Chapter 9

_The flagrant overuse of the word "weird" is entirely intentional. I will be working with eight-year-old kidlets again this summer, and it's a very common trait in that group. When they find a word they like, they will use it for entirely too long, and will only stop when they find a new word. Sudden changes in topic are also very much a classic._

**Paved Paradise**

**Chapter Nine: Secrets Revealed**

Sometimes, adults were very, very strange. The Teen Titans weren't any different, but they were much nicer. Raven liked sleeping in as late as she liked, instead of having somebody wake up her up to be ready for dawn meditations, and Cyborg had promised that they could go into the city. She still wasn't at all convinced that blue jeans were more comfortable than her normal clothes, and didn't know why they were called blue jeans when her favorite pair was black, but it felt nicer when she put a blue shirt on over the top of one of her leotards, and then the black blue jeans, and socks that were bright green like Starfire's eyes.

Usually nobody was awake even at eight in the morning, but she could feel that they all were waking up. Beast Boy was usually grumpy about it, and she could feel the orange flashes from his room that probably meant bad words, but Starfire was lots of pinks and yellows and warmth. Cyborg was already working on something, probably, to have the yellowy-brown so steady. The very, very odd part was in the kitchen. She thought it was Robin, but he didn't feel at all like Robin.

She could hear whistling before she walked through the automatic doors that led into the common room and kitchen, and for once Robin wasn't entirely in uniform. The cape was gone, but the even weirder part happened when he turned around. It was already very odd that his emotions were suddenly nicer, with pink tinging over everything instead of red and grey and black, but when he turned to say good morning, she could see his eyes. The mask he always, always wore was gone.

Raven was starting to get a little worried, but she played along when he offered to let her help making breakfast. He even told her funny stories about the time somebody named Batman (which was a much, much weirder name than Raven) had tried to make scrambled eggs and the time that Batman decided to make chicken noodle soup for somebody named Alfred. (Raven thought that name was weird, too.)

After about ten minutes, when all they'd done was keep making pancakes, she decided that maybe Robin hadn't been possessed by something happy. Maybe he'd just read a book or something that made him have all kinds of purple when he got distracted and started just looking out the window.

"Did you have a good dream?" Raven asked. After she'd thought about it, she remembered that he usually just got grumpier and redder when he was reading books or reading off of his computer.

He blushed, a little, which made Raven sure that he wasn't possessed. Possessed people didn't get embarrassed. "Yeah, and I talked to Starfire. I was thinking so much about getting you back to sixteen that I forgot about what you would've been like at eight. I guess that I forgot the empathy wasn't something you picked up later."

Raven decided she liked the not-possessed-but-much-nicer Robin. Maybe the mask had made him grumpy. "You were all prickly, but you're better now. Do we have chocolate chips?"

"Um- yes," he said, looking a little confused. A lot of adults got confused when she asked something else, but he hadn't really wanted to talk about being prickly anyway. "Way too many, actually." Robin had found them without asking what she wanted them for, which was nice. Raven pointed at one of the bags in the cupboard, and floated it over to her hands. Starfire had talked to her just two days ago, and she'd already figured out what none of the monks ever had. It was easier for Raven to stay in control and to control her powers when she was happy. Not when she was trying to not feel anything, which usually just made her sad. She thought that she was lonely, too, but didn't know what lonely was supposed to feel like.

"My mother said that chocolate-chip pancakes were her favorite, but Azarath didn't have chocolate. Or a lot of sugar. We had sugar beets, but not that many of them, and that was usually just for tea." Raven had no idea what one was supposed to do with the chocolate chips, but she hadn't known what a pancake was before Robin explained them.

Robin knew what to do, though, and he even made funny designs when he was putting the chocolate chips into the batter-circles. The turtle was a little lopsided, but it did look nicer after it was done cooking. Maybe that was why her mother had liked them. Chocolate-chip pancakes were happy, and nice, and her mother was never very happy. She was even less happy if Raven tried to visit without being invited first, even when the books with a mother and a daughter never made visits work that way. Sometimes, she didn't know why her mother even stayed on Azarath, if she didn't like seeing Raven and didn't like being quiet and had so many memories about Gotham that were nice. All the books said that parents were supposed to love their children, but Raven didn't think that hers did at all.

When Robin tried to get her to make silly pictures in the pancakes, she made a dove instead. She took long enough putting the chocolate chips in place that the last few would barely sink into the pancake, but it definitely looked like a bird. Raven shook her head when he asked if it was a Robin, irritated that he couldn't tell a person from a bird. "It's a dove. For my mother, because these were her favorite."

"Is she gone?"

Robin was really asking if she was dead, because people always thought little kids were too little to hear the word 'dead,' but 'gone' was too nice. Gone just meant that they'd left, and could come back if they wanted. Raven shook her head, and flipped her dove-pancake over with telekinesis that she shouldn't have been able to use until she was ten. The monks never let her try things ahead of somebody else's schedule, even when she knew that she could do them.

"She didn't want me, so she doesn't like to see me very often. I make her very, very grey, when she's always a little grey. She likes doves a lot. Ravens eat dead things."

"Ravens are also a whole lot smarter than doves," Robin said, very carefully moving the dove-pancake to sit with the rest of them. He hadn't started any other ones while she worked. "You can ask Beast Boy if you really want to hear about them, but we can find out a little."

Five minutes later, Raven knew more about ravens than anyone else had ever told her before. There were lots of things on the computer that talked about why scavengers were very important, and pictures of ravens playing with wolves, and stories that the world would end if ravens ever left the Tower of London. She liked Huginn and Muninn best, because they were smart and they helped a god and their names were the best. "Thought" and "memory" were _good _things, even if there were other stories where ravens weren't so nice. Robin showed her a picture of a robin, too, but he said that it wasn't nearly as interesting as a raven. His mom had called him Robin, sometimes.

By the time that anyone else came into the kitchen, she'd already eaten the pancake with the dove in it, and Robin had asked if she'd like to go to a circus. She'd said yes, because he wanted her to go and because it sounded fun, then asked what a circus was. He was still explaining when Starfire came into the kitchen, not looking much at all like Starfire except for her emotions.

She was wearing blue jeans, too, except that Starfire's were actually dark blue, and a white shirt that buttoned all down the front. She had light purple shoes that looked like her boots, and a necklace with a purple stone. Raven thought that the necklace was why Starfire had tan-color skin and white all around dark green eyes, and went back to her pancakes. Starfire was usually pink-and-purple, but when she and Robin looked at each other, both of them were very, very purple. Raven supposed that they were trying to be sneaky by not saying anything, except good morning, but they had very goofy smiles as they talked about pancakes and chips of chocolate and the circus.

Raven was in a very good mood when Beast Boy and Cyborg came into the kitchen. Cyborg had his rings, again, and he was talking to Beast Boy and not looking at the rest of them. Beast Boy was still green, and talking about something that sounded like spandex, but Raven wasn't sure if that was a word.

Beast Boy looked over first. "Good morning, everyb—dude! Cyborg, you didn't tell me you had time to make an extra set of rings."

Cyborg scratched the back of his neck, shaking his head. "I would've told you, B, but... huh." Robin felt a little embarrassed, again, but Raven didn't think it was the bad kind of embarrassed that turned into being unhappy. It was just being shy. "Yeah, that'll do." Cyborg took a few pancakes, but he left the one where Robin had made a turtle.

Beast Boy was still staring at Robin critically, but after a few moments he grinned. "Cool. I like the necklace, Starfire- um. Names?"

"Maybe Rob?" Cyborg suggested, glancing at Robin. "We could say it's short for Robert. I probably still answer to Victor, so I'm set."

Starfire let Robin have his time to think. "Perhaps we could use a short form of my name in its original form. 'Star' and 'fire' are both unusual components of a name, but I have heard others that are called Kori. As for friend Raven..." Starfire studied Raven's expression. "Would it be acceptable if we called you Rae?"

Starfire could call her anything she wanted if she kept looking at her like that. If Raven said no, then they'd make up something else and Starfire wouldn't be angry or upset. She wouldn't say that Raven was an ungrateful pupil or whisper about harboring destroyers when she thought that Raven couldn't hear. "Okay," Raven agreed, testing the name in her mind. 'Rae' wasn't all that different at all, and she liked pretending to be normal. Even strangers weren't afraid of her anymore.

"What about you, Beast Boy?" Raven asked, because Robin had his thinking-face on, even if his thinking-face was much happier than usual.

"Um. Well. I don't know what my parents were thinking, but- Garfield."

Starfire smiled, Raven nodded, and Cyborg tried very, very hard to not let all the pink and yellow get away from him. He still laughed, but Raven could tell that Beast Boy didn't feel hurt. She thought Beast Boy had expected that, but didn't know why. Garfield sounded just as normal as Raven did.

"Yeah, yeah," Beast Boy said, helping himself to the turtle pancake and Raven's spiral-design pair. "Their names were Mark and Marie, so I guess they thought they needed to do something weird."

"My mom's name was Angela," Raven offered. "She doesn't use that name anymore, though, so I just heard it when she told me about Gotham. Now her name is Arella."

Robin was looking at her, and with a whole lot of yellow behind the look. "What did she tell you about Gotham?"

"She was from Gotham, I think, and she said that Time Square was her favorite part, because there were so many lights and tourists and people just wandering around. It's one of the only cities where people will remember to look up, sometimes." Raven hadn't thought they would be so interested, but all four of her friends were listening. She blushed, still not used to so many people paying attention to her at once. "That's all that I really know, about before. She didn't really mean to have me, and Azar took her in and let her stay there."

It was Cyborg's turn to do the dishes, but nobody said a word about leaving them all over the table. They all went over to the couch, instead, and Robin and Cyborg both found everything they could about Times Square. Raven's favorite part was when they watched thousands and thousands of people cheering because a new year was starting while a giant lamp-ball sank down toward them. She'd never, ever seen so many people, and Raven could tell that the entire place would be so full of pink that she wouldn't stop smiling for a whole week.

"I've never actually seen that in person," Robin said when they'd watched two different New Years in a row. "We had a couple way quieter traditions, if anybody would cooperate by staying in Arkham or staying in their hideout for two extra hours."

"Maybe we could do those next time, then," Raven said, looking at Robin again. She liked his eyes. They were the same color as her mother's, and maybe she could imagine her mother looking happy instead of just peaceful. "We still don't know what we're supposed to call you at the circus," she reminded him. "You could make up an extra code-name."

"No need for that," Robin said, even if he felt a little uncomfortable. "My name is Richard. I can't..."

"Hey, that's more than enough," Cyborg said, lightly punching Robin's shoulder. "You got a whole lot of secret identities tied up in you, it's alright. My secret identity's honestly more of a formality than anything else, the green machine over here has a couple obvious handicaps in secrecy, and it was never a huge deal for Starfire or Raven. Speaking of that, Beast Boy and I will be set in an hour. I think I've given up on something that will change with him, so we're going for something that will fall off instead of taking his hand off if he forgets he has it on."

"More like when I forget," Beast Boy admitted cheerfully. "There's a reason for the spandex. If I changed wearing anything else, I'd lose the clothes or break something."

Raven finished reading her book while everybody else took a very long time to get dressed. Robin's shirt was bright red, like his costume and like the real robin that she'd seen on the computer, and his hair was all different. Beast Boy had a black shirt and a watch with a really stretchy band. Raven let Cyborg and Robin and Beast Boy talk about spandex and wires and other things, and nobody tried to interrupt her from the last fifteen pages while they drove to the circus. She'd already decided that _Matilda _was one of the best books ever, and that she'd need to call Sadie to say thank you. She had to write letters when someone gave her new clothes, but the thank-you letters in nice writing weren't as nice as talking to people.

Beast Boy noticed that her book was closed, and asked what it had been about. Everybody was interested, especially Cyborg, so Raven must have described half the book during the rest of the car ride. It was about a little girl that lived with her mean family, and she was so smart that she got really bored and caused trouble, and she could even move things with her mind but she did that to help people, and in the end she got to live with the really nice teacher and she got to read so much that she got to feel a little normal again.

Starfire held Raven's hand when they walked into the giant room for the circus, and actually picked Raven up when it was too big. "I am most sorry, friend Raven," she apologized quietly, hugging her. "I had forgotten that it is quite intimidating to be near so many people at once with your abilities."

"It's loud," Raven whispered, leaning against Starfire's neck. The mall had been really big, but she'd been focusing on Cyborg, and she hadn't been ready to feel everybody at once. Here, everybody was in the same room, and almost all of them had traces of the same emotions. "I'll be okay in a minute, though, because it's a good kind of loud. Everybody's happy and really excited."

Raven was okay just two minutes later, but Starfire carried her all the way to their seats. They were in the very first row, with a tight rope way, way up over their heads, and lots of bars hanging between two ropes hanging from the roof. Raven was still studying all of the different ladders up when someone lit up yellow and came running over.

"Dick?" the man said, staring straight at Robin. "Dick Grayson, I can't believe it! Nobody's seen you for ages, kid, and then here you are right up front!" He offered a hand to shake, but Robin was feeling a little tiny bit grey. Raven frowned.

"It's good to see you, Gary," Robin said, shaking his hand. "It took me a while to be able to come back, that's all. Six months ago I still would have been checking every bit of rope you have."

"Well, I can't blame you," the man said, glancing off to the side as someone called his name. "Great to see you, kid, and great to know that acrobats always land on their feet. Adopted by Bruce fucking Wayne- wow."

Raven didn't know why those last words would matter so much, but Robin had frozen, Starfire looked puzzled, and Cyborg and Beast Boy seemed like they would fall out of their chairs if they were not distracted. No one else was ready to say something, so Raven scowled at Gary, meeting his eyes squarely. "My teacher says that swearing is only for people with bad manners." The man apologized to her before running off to talk to somebody else, and that gave Robin a little more time to start blinking again.

Cyborg cleared his throat, the first of them to talk when Gary had left. "Well. That's got to be some kind of record, Richard, but you know none of us are going to say a word. We're here to watch some acrobats and eat a crazy amount of circus food. With that in mind, anybody else want an elephant ear?"

Beast Boy and Starfire both had to be reassured that an elephant ear was a type of pastry that had nothing to do with elephants, and Cyborg's solo trip quickly turned into the three of them heading for the food cart. Raven tugged at Robin's wrist, because he hadn't started to get all grumpy yet and she didn't want him to when he'd been so happy. "Is he nice?" she asked.

"He's..." Robin ran a hand through his hair. "We didn't see eye-to-eye for the longest time, but we've been talking again lately. We're going to have a pretty unhappy talk tonight, because my guardian should definitely know if I'm in California when I'm technically at a nonexistent private boarding school in Massachusetts."

"Do you like him?"

"Yeah. We might not get along all that well, but I wouldn't have traded that for anything," Robin said, looking at her instead of the hanging bars up by the ceiling. "That's the only way I got to meet all of you."

Raven smiled, feeling a little streak of mischief. "Especially Starfire."

Robin would have asked what she meant and he would've tried to deny everything, but then the rest came back. Raven kept her seat right next to Robin, and wasn't at all surprised when Starfire sat on his other side. They'd probably have private little conversations, just like when Brother Laurence and Sister Thele had started getting so purple that it looked a little blue, so she leaned on Beast Boy's shoulder instead while they waited for the show to start. Beast Boy and Cyborg were still really surprised, even though Raven didn't think that "Bruce Wayne" was all that interesting at all, but they started describing all the different kinds of food to her when she asked. The cotton candy was her favorite, because it looked just like a cloud, but it came in every color.

"This one's the best," Raven said, holding up a bright pink tuft of sugar in her hand. "That's what happiness looks like, and there's lots and lots of pink here. I never, ever saw this much pink on Azarath."

Beast Boy had put his arm over her shoulders, because it was more comfortable that way and she kept leaning over to steal Cyborg's popcorn when she thought he wasn't looking. She wasn't that sneaky, maybe, but he was really nice and only caught her wrist a few times, holding it so gently between two fingers that she knew he'd never hurt her. Almost all of the food was gone before the announcer came to the center of the ring, and then Raven didn't remember anything but knowing that people could fly.

The acrobats had brilliantly bright costumes, some in colors that she'd never seen before, and there was someone moving everywhere she tried to look. There were men and women dancing down a thin wire, and people flying with their knees bent over the bar-things (Robin said they were trapeze), and people on the ground doing flips and jumps , and she could feel them. The performers weren't scared, so she could watch with wide eyes as they seemed to come just two inches away from missing and falling down toward the floor.

Raven had never wanted to fly so badly, and one look at Starfire told her that her friend felt the same. Beast Boy had that same half-curious wishing, too, so Raven bounced in her seat when the announcer came back out to thank him for coming, and it was time to go. She could still see their Tower from the outside of the circus, even if they'd driven a long time in the T-car. The T-car was dark purple, because they'd let Raven decide what it should look like, so nobody would know who they were. She was just going to ask if she could please fly back with Starfire, if they were really careful, when all four of their communicators rang. Raven had a communicator, too, but hers was little and would only call the others.

"I'll stay with Rae," Robin offered instantly, resting his hand on her shoulder. "My mask is with me."

"Take the car," Cyborg replied, ruffling Raven's hair. "It's alright, Rae." There hadn't been many calls at all, when the Titans had needed to go out with just three of them, and she'd never stayed with Robin before. Cyborg spent a long time reading the description, even as Starfire and Beast Boy's emotions changed to be very serious. "It's the HIVE kids. No points for originality, they're robbing a bank."

"We can walk down to the coast," Beast Boy offered. "I have my uniform under everything else."

"As do I." Starfire kissed Raven on the forehead. "Be well, friends Raven and Robin, and we will call you when the enemy is vanquished and it is time for supper."

Raven watched her friends leave, uneasy even as Robin held her hand. Something wasn't right. The three of them walked casually down toward the beach, and it was just two minutes later that Robin's communicator beeped quietly. Four seconds after that, they could see Starfire carrying Cyborg up over the bay, with a hawk swooping around their heads.

"Let's get to the car, Raven." Robin didn't feel any happier, which made her feel a little better just to feel the echo of her own emotions. It was nice when other people felt the same thing. "We'll head on back to the Tower. Only three of the HIVE are there, so it'll be a fair fight."

Raven was buckled into her booster seat at the back passenger window when Robin's communicator rang again, and she could feel how confused he was when he read the message to himself. "What does it say?" she asked, leaning forward.

"'Stone, something isn't right. Gizmo has a secret and Mammoth won't look me in the eye. Get the kid out of Dodge.'" Robin frowned at the communicator before turning back to look at Raven. "That would have just gone to Cyborg, but during any fight, information replicates to all four communicators." He stared at the communicator again before looking back to her, so sharply that the mask could have been right back in place. "Raven, when you met your friend at the mall- tell me what happened."

Raven tried to remember the parts about meeting Sadie that Robin would want to know, not all of the emotions and a stranger that was nice to her. "She said that I was supposed to yell if a stranger grabbed me, and bought me the book, and kept calling Cyborg Stone instead, and said we weren't friends when I'm grown up." Raven frowned. She'd forgotten that last part. She'd been too relieved that Cyborg wasn't angry to remember before. "She told me that she didn't mess with kids, and left her phone number in my book, in case I needed her. I was going to call to say thank you."

She had already pointed at her book, so that Robin would be able to reach it, when his communicator rang again. Raven leaned forward as far as she could, and that time Robin tilted his communicator so they both could see. Cyborg had sent a message with only one word: Slade.


	10. Chapter 10

_Real life decided to get very interesting for a while, and just when the story was coming close to the giant fight scene. Here's a chapter that might make up for the wait, and from a surprise perspective. Parties interested in the specifics of what I let technology do can leave a note asking for the neurology basis. _

**Paved Paradise**

**Chapter Ten: Friends in Strange Places**

It would have been a much more average day if Gizmo had been at all in his right mind. Really, it would have made a much more average week.

Jinx was making a grand production of robbing a bank, and for once she'd whittled it down to just her main team. The Titans were down a woman, so it was only fair. It didn't hurt that her team's auxiliary members were little better than useless, and See-More was absolutely useless if Starfire was anywhere in play. He never could tear his eyes away from the buxom superheroine, and it grated on Jinx's nerves to have someone along with such an obvious weakness.

Mammoth was a reassuring strength while she made a grand show of menacing the employees, giving them plenty of time to call for Titan backup. They were working on the usual _modus operandi _of drawing a big hue and cry sure to bring the Teen Titans running. They were immensely likely to lose the fight, but the main objective would be set. They periodically made a huge mess of a fight to let everyone think they were amateurs, and to disguise the successful bank robberies they pulled off under the disguise of looking more normal. Jinx had visited the mall just before robbing a bank, as it happened, and the disguise hadn't caught Stone's eye when he passed her with a little girl in tow.

The HIVE had to fund itself somehow, and costumed villainy was entirely too easy to trace.

The problem was Gizmo. He had barely added in a single comment while she was giving her monologue, when she usually could count on his childish insults to lighten up her big villainous speech into less of a threat. He'd been off his game the entire week, acting like someone was watching them even when they were at lunch. There was a careful line to skate as one of the bad guys. The pride of a decently scary reputation was important, but it paled in comparison to the need to not be _too _bad until you got to Slade's caliber. He could afford to terrify people; he could back up the reputation with substance. Teenaged baddies with acne and bad hair days were better off leaving their accomplishments firmly in the territory of 'nuisance.'

When Gizmo checked his watch for the fifth time, even as Jinx loaded several unexpected clusters of twenty-dollar bills into her satchel, she knew something was wrong. The clerks had conceded to their gambit entirely too easily, it was true, but this was something worse. Jinx turned to Mammoth, and froze when he averted his gaze. Gizmo was acting oddly and Mammoth…

Mammoth wouldn't look her in the eye, and she'd never seen him look guilty. She hadn't been entirely sure that emotion was anywhere in his repertoire, and there weren't many things she would count as a betrayal.

She pulled out her communicator. She didn't have a single second thought as she sent a fast message to a number she definitely shouldn't have.

_Stone, something isn't right, _she typed, too fast to wonder at her choice of words. _Gizmo has a secret and Mammoth won't look me in the eye. Get the kid out of Dodge. _

Jinx set the message with a click of a button, and wasn't surprised when Gizmo's jaw dropped. If he was making deals behind her back, it was no big shock that he was monitoring her communicator.

"Jinx?" Gizmo's voice cracked with something between disbelief and victory.

Jinx met his eyes squarely. "You started it with the back-door deals," she bluffed, wondering just what he could have done. Jinx had probably blown her entire future with the HIVE, and maybe with anything that wasn't a room in a center for juvenile delinquents, but Mammoth hadn't met her eyes and Gizmo was looking to the shadows entirely too often.

Her communicator beeped cheerfully, and she and Gizmo both glanced at their communicators to see just what the incoming message said.

_Thanks for the heads-up. The kid is in good hands. _

Gizmo frowned even as Jinx smiled grimly. So there was one advantage, they'd leave Raven out of it. Jinx couldn't explain just why that was so important to her, but maybe it was something in the way a little eight-year-old girl had trusted her. Kids would give nearly anyone a chance. Kids didn't deserve to feel like they didn't have any options, that all they could do was hope that Darkway Prep would accept them and mold them into someone that wasn't cut out for a cape and a vigilantism-for-the-common-good gig.

"What does that even _mean?_" Gizmo complained, scowling at her. "You're ditching us for that hero, after all the time I spent telling people you hadn't slept with the lunkhead, and your secret codes are stupid?"

Mammoth looked between the two of them, confusion slowly settling into his large-boned features. "Jinx?"

He still looked to her in a crisis, but that wouldn't last long. "Gizmo made some kind of deal, one that you already know about, but I have a connection of my own."

"You aren't _pregnant, _are you?" Gizmo's sneer was telling; he thought he knew the answer.

"What? No!" Of all the lines of questioning, Jinx hadn't expected that one.

Mammoth looked even guiltier, instead of the anger she had expected, even as Gizmo's anger faded to surprise. "Then what's this about a kid?"

"I would also be very interested to learn just where you might have received that piece of intelligence," said an instantly recognizable voice from the shadows.

"Slade?" Ignoring the world-famous assassin that had some kind of crazy-scary obsession with Robin, all while knowing that ignoring him was never a great plan, Jinx whirled on Gizmo. "That's what's had you acting weird for a week? You went behind my back to make a deal with Slade?"

"You would have said no," Gizmo retorted. "We never did so well as when we worked with him! No offense, Jinx, but you don't have what it takes to keep this team moving forward."

"If you are quite finished?" Slade asked, the patience in his voice more frightening than anger would have been. Anger was expected, or disgust at their immaturity, but he was at his most dangerous when everything was following his plan. He only continued when every eye in the bank was focused on him. "I believe we were in the midst of a bank robbery. Mammoth, collect the loot. Gizmo, be sure you are ready to greet our guests."

There was an inflection on 'guests' she didn't want to think about. Jinx didn't have time before Slade's lone eye moved to rest directly on her. "Let's avoid the clichés, shall we?" he asked smoothly. "If you no longer wish to be involved in this team, then so be it. Should you decide to stay, Gizmo has expressed his desire for the leadership role, and Mammoth has agreed."

"I don't need to think about." Jinx was probably crazy, but she'd probably been crazy since she realized that the only option for an embodiment of bad luck was a life of crime. "I'm out."

She was sure that Slade would have a reply, and that the reply would be no kind of gracious acceptance, but Gizmo interrupted them with open glee in his voice. "He's in range, sir! Shall I?"

Slade walked to the glass window front of the bank, and didn't react when Cyborg pointed directly at the group and yelled something to his teammates. From what Jinx could see, it looked very much like 'Slade.'

"At your will, Gizmo," Slade responded finally. Before he had even finished the phrase, Gizmo fired something that looked like a pistol, and a silver sphere shot through the air to collide directly with Cyborg's side. He dropped like a stone in the next instant, drawing screams from several civilians in the bank. Jinx was glad for the shrill screams that covered her own gasp, because they weren't friends. Even if she had warned Cyborg, and he'd listened, that didn't make them friends.

Slade handed a second small device to Gizmo, something that looked like a syringe in bullet form. Both of them kept their eyes on the three Titans outside, and Jinx couldn't help but do the same. Starfire was shaking Stone's shoulder while Beast Boy was visibly composing himself. When the green guy slipped, his entire form shuddered as if something were ready to break free.

"Fire," Slade ordered quietly.

Two seconds later, Beast Boy was on the ground, but he wasn't still. He was shifting between animals too fast for Jinx to track, all of them blended together into something terrible.

This time, the entire bank was screaming, and hardly anyone seemed to notice when Gizmo and Slade walked out the front doors and closer to their quarry. Starfire was yelling curses in some foreign tongue, and looked ready to kill anyone that stepped too close to her.

Jinx had already left the HIVE behind, but this would have been enough to make her reconsider. It didn't matter that the Teen Titans were her enemies. She wouldn't… there were lines that she couldn't cross, and this was way too far down that path. She glanced at her communicator, again, after counting Titans and knowing just what she was going to do.

_Teen Titans, do you copy? Two Titans are down and Slade looks like he did his homework. _

The reply only took a minute. _I copy. What's happening over there? _

It had to be Robin. Of everyone on the planet, she was going to help Robin, but she didn't like the way that Slade had some third little piece of silver ready for Starfire, or the way that Starfire was screaming. _Cyborg is down, and he isn't moving. Beast Boy's down and showing off an entire zoo at the same time. Starfire won't calm down, and she's in trouble. _

_Is anyone in the bank still? _

_Civilians. This is Jinx, if you haven't guessed, and I'm not part of HIVE anymore. This is too deep for me. If you can get to the bank, you might be able to surprise Slade. _Jinx rubbed at her ear, wondering why all the civilians had yet to run. If she had to take care of all of them, she wanted a refund, or a nice stack of bills for her own.

She might have spent the effort of calming them down, but they were shocked into silence just moments later as a very small Titan and a short teenage guy appeared in the middle of the lobby. Raven's eyes were scrunched tight, and she wasn't wearing any kind of clothes that could be mistaken for normal. She was wearing a pure white leotard and cape, and clinging tight to Robin as the shadows receded around them.

Robin looked at Jinx, and neither had time for posturing. "Watch her. She needs to get out of here."

Jinx definitely hadn't signed up for this. Mister Junior Paranoid trusted her to look after Raven, and that made this the weirdest thing that had happened to her in fifteen years. "She's out of here," Jinx agreed, holding out a hand to Raven. "C'mon, sorry about the hairdo but we've met before."

"Sadie!" Raven took her hand, looking up at her without a trace of fear. "You changed your hair. And your eyes. I like pink, though."

Somehow, the kid still trusted her. Robin's direction might have helped, but HIVE research thought that Raven's powers were emotion-based. It was hard to believe any of them had been so small, really, especially when she was used to trading blows with the full-size version.

"Kid, we need to be ready to move." Jinx glanced over her shoulder, freezing despite herself when she caught the look on Robin's face. She hadn't noticed when Starfire fell, but the orange-skinned powerhouse was curled up on the ground limp as overboiled noodles. Jinx flinched when Robin fell just moments later, and before he could even get closer than twenty feet to Starfire.

Jinx caught most of Slade's monologue (something about using their strengths against them, but the only part she cared about in the babble about Beast Boy's ability to chooses forms and Starfire's strength and Robin's acrobatics was the part where Cyborg wasn't dead, not that she wanted to dwell much on the part where she still had a little tiny remnant of a crush on the jerk), but she was spending most of her attention keeping Raven from charging forward. Apparently superheroes didn't just pick it up later, because this girl had it at eight.

Slade was coming toward them. Raven was categorically refusing to leave, but Jinx could at least try to get some time. "Hey!" Jinx yelled at the civilians that had yet to run away. "Hide her. You know who this is—Raven, listen to me. Don't let Slade see you."

There wasn't any time to make the kid promise. Slade was making his way for the bank, and Jinx was moving to block the entrance. By the time Slade had climbed the stairs, Jinx was solidly in his way, and beginning to think that the stupidity that set superheroes on their way was the slightest bit contagious.

Slade was remarkably expressive with only one eye showing, because through the mask she could tell that he was unimpressed with her idiocy, but not going to kill her for it yet. She thought the 'yet' came through especially well.

"You would do better to leave," Slade drawled, in that terribly patient voice that didn't give any hints about what he was feeling.

Jinx was an idiot. She was a certified idiot and she should have vanished with Raven to the beach or something, but instead she was standing in the entryway of a bank. "Let's skip the speeches. Working for you, the only part more annoying than the ever-foreboding threat of what would happen for screwing up? The speeches. Always with the speeches and the posturing."

Slade's eye narrowed. Jinx let an arcing line of pink energy fly; that was probably the only hit she'd land on him. She expected a minor stumble or maybe a ding in the armor, but his mask cracked along a previously unseen weakness to show a skeleton where there should have been a jawline.

Jinx didn't have time to scream before Slade backhanded her into a wall, but the crowd was yet again making up for her lack of reaction. She'd stopped herself from hitting her head, but at the expense of a badly fractured arm, and the littler, nobler idiot had stepped free from the relative safety of the crowds.

Raven was facing Slade alone, and Jinx's bad landing on her left ankle hadn't left her in any better condition to help the insanely brave little child.

The kid looked up at Slade with his one eye and exposed bone, and she didn't look afraid. "You were working for my father," Raven said in that charmingly blunt way common to most children. "You shouldn't hurt my friends because he lied to you."

"I have yet to truly hurt your friends, Raven. They all will be fine in another ten minutes or so… as long as you cooperate. I require leverage against your father."

There was something peaceful in Raven's expression as she studied him. "I suppose you do, if you tried to make deals with Trigon."

Jinx's eyes popped wide open, and she wasn't the only one, but she supposed it made sense. In a freaky way. Raven was the Titan witch, and her powers were way more serious than being born with freaky pink eyes and bad luck. There was no way 'Trigon' was a coincidence, not after what had happened to Dr. Light.

Slade had some reply ready, it was obvious from his posture, but Raven didn't leave him the opening. She drew herself up to every inch that her small height gave her, and when she met Slade's eyes, Jinx swore that she felt nearly as brave as the little girl herself.

Raven couldn't help projecting emotions, even though Arella had said it was rude and Azar said it was a mark of poor discipline. For once, all of her emotions agreed on something. The bad ones all wanted to pound on Slade for thinking that he could take her away, and the good ones wanted to pound him because Slade had hurt her friends. He'd even hurt Sadie, and Sadie barely knew Raven at all.

"I think that you're done threatening people for a while," Raven said fiercely, letting the green and red bleed together for the first time ever. She'd never needed to be brave and angry at the same time, but even that scary part of Rage that connected right to Trigon was helping her for once.

The scary part was that she had to let go of something, and it was something important that was protecting her from the world. All of her friends had protected her, though, so it was her turn to protect them. Raven unclenched both of her hands from their fists and felt herself float up, just like Starfire.

When Raven started glowing, she thought that Slade looked a little scared, but he definitely didn't feel gray at all. He only was surprised, still, but something in him had known that his plan wouldn't succeed. Perhaps that was the reason he had taken an instinctive step away from her. She could feel her magic exploding out of her in every direction, and knew that it wasn't under her control, but she wasn't afraid. Her emotions wouldn't fail her, and her instincts were right.

The white glow extended to far beyond the bank, and when it slowly receded into a teenaged superhero, Slade was gone and her teammates were okay

Raven paused long enough to dimly remember that Jinx had helped her, and to check that the badly damaged arm had been helped along by the burst of magic, but she flew toward her friends. The image of all four on the ground had been burned into her memory, for all that it seemed the bank robbery had started eight years before.

Starfire still looked weak on her feet, just as Robin looked wobbly, but the two of them were supporting each other. Cyborg was pulling himself up, and his emotions were an oddly comforting mix of irritation and happiness. If he had time to spare to be annoyed, then he would be fine.

Beast Boy was still curled in on himself, but the parade of twisted creatures had stopped. Instead, he was holding himself back from becoming the Beast by sheer will.

Raven knelt next to him, resting her hand on his shoulder. "Hey. If I apparently turned into a little kid instead of some demonic apparition, you can calm down enough to say 'I told you so.'" Projecting her emotions hadn't been so bad last time, so she enveloped him in calm until he peered at her from under an arm.

"Raven? You're big! I mean, you—um—you were really small, and now you're not, so—um." He gulped, very obviously, and she didn't need empathy to sense his trepidation.

"It's alright. I'm myself again." She was back to normal, and she could already feel her emotions clamoring in so many directions that she felt like she was going to pull apart. She couldn't be that little girl anymore, and couldn't understand the vague, years-old memories where she'd been so happy and so sad. She remembered Azar and Starfire's lessons all at once, reading quietly in her room for hours on end and playing video games with Beast Boy, shopping with Cyborg and never having anything of her own but books and plain clothes… she remembered how her mother had never approved of her, and how Robin had finally proved that he wasn't like her.

The world hadn't ended. She hadn't been able to stand up to her father, but her eight-year-old self had forced him back to the netherworlds. Her eight-year-old self had been passionate enough to drive Slade back a step and to heal all of her teammates—all of her family. She was back to being boring, stoic, dependable Raven.

The looks on her teammate's faces only made her even more aware of her usual mask, and their emotions… it was too much, and the pavement beneath her was dangerously close to cracking. Raven vanished without saying another word, and grabbed a book as her shield only after securely locking the door of her room. She didn't want to talk to anyone. Not yet. The rest of the world would just have to wait while she tried to remember the best two weeks of her life.


	11. Chapter 11

_Sorry for the long delay, everybody! Medical school ate half of a year between the constant exams and the threat of the even bigger national exam at the end of it, one (hopefully!) conquered just this week. If there's still interest in Teen Titans, I have a few ideas left. Please leave a review if interested. _

_Special thanks to Kayasuri-N for help with Beast Boy and Raven's conversation._

**Paved Paradise **

**Chapter Eleven: Status Quo**

Beast Boy had come out of a near-Beast episode with nothing more than a few strained places in his shirt. The same couldn't be said about the rest of them.

Cyborg was shaky on his feet (with Jinx of all people helping him keep upright), and Starfire had her arm firmly around Robin's shoulders. All of them couldn't seem to look away from the space that had held Raven just a minute before.

"Dibs on talking her out of her room," Beast Boy said as he hopped to his feet. "If everybody else has cleanup, I might even manage by the time you all get home."

Robin promised to talk to the police, Starfire agreed to set the bank back to rights as best as she could, and Cyborg was already directing suspicious looks toward the cops that looked similarly leery about Jinx's presence at Cyborg's side. Beast Boy wasn't sure just what he thought about Jinx yet. He'd think all that out when he was sure that Raven wasn't thinking herself into a very unhappy corner.

Flying was exhausting and he hadn't spent enough time as an orca lately. There were faster morphs, maybe, but nobody messed with a killer whale speeding toward the island in the middle of the Bay. He switched to gull form at the apex of a leap and flapped his way high enough for a falcon's wings to start gaining a true advantage. At the level of Raven's window, he changed to a hummingbird and rapped several times against her window. She might have been ready to ignore someone at her door. He'd have the advantage of novelty this way.

A portal opened just in front of him. It might lead to his room, or to the roof, but if he didn't trust Raven now she wasn't going to trust him back. He flew through and found himself just past the closed door of Raven's room, facing the open window. The tiny aquarium she had brought back from the mall was all the inspiration he needed.

"The sea monkeys are looking good, Raven! Er—the brine shrimp, I guess. I don't know how much you remember about being eight with us." It could have been yesterday, he knew. He didn't think that was the case. If she remembered just how happy that she'd been with them she wouldn't be sitting on her bed wrapped in a blue cloak, one knee drawn up to her chest.

"It was eight years ago," she said quietly. She didn't have to say anything else. He could hear the misery coming through the five words just as if she'd shouted her feelings to him. He might not be the brightest guy on the team but long practice at making her mad had given way to skill in telling just when her emotional state was about to change.

"We'll get your memories back." That drew her attention; Beast Boy started talking fast when her eyes snapped to catch his gaze. "I mean, not the cool way that you could probably manage if it was one of us, but we have all the security recordings from here and from the mall, and if we cut them right, it'll be just like home videos!"

She didn't smile, of course. He hadn't done _that _well. He had made enough progress that the tightness around her eyes vanished and her knee inched away from her chin. "I do remember making friends with Jinx of all people."

"We're giving her a chance to go straight," Beast Boy assured her before she had to ask. "She got her arm broken by Slade defending you. The police shouldn't be too hard to talk around. Anyway, I'm guessing that you don't really want to talk about this." The agreement with that statement couldn't have been more obvious if she'd made a sign. "So I thought I'd talk."

Raven relaxed further. Her legs shifted to her usual posture, crossed, and she looked pointedly around her room. "I'd offer you a place to sit, but…"

But why would a girl who could float keep chairs handy? "I won't talk at you that long, promise. I just have to say something before I lose my nerve and before I pretend that you're right if you fight me on this.

"The people that raised you? Raven, I don't think I ever understood how much of you came from trying to be a kid around adults like that. Not when they thought that you were… that you could ever… if you're any kind of danger? It's only to people that probably have it coming. They were wrong and you thought they were right and I wish that someone really had been able to take you out of there."

Raven hadn't interrupted him, which was surprising enough. He was stunned when she inclined her head in further agreement. Her left eyebrow lowered slightly in a visible sign that she was gathering her courage. "My mother was the same. She was afraid of me and she wished that she'd never ran away from her parents when she was just a teenager. That's why it was so easy to believe them and why it's always been hard to…"

"To believe that you're good."

Yet again, her lack of disapproval meant that he was right. "I don't even know where I sent Slade."

"Considering what he was going to do? If you sent him to Trigon to deal with the double-crossing thing I wouldn't argue."

Of everything he'd said, that was what crossed the fine line between 'everything is fine' and 'Raven doesn't enjoy the current topic of conversation.' "Thanks." The word was genuine even as she was retreating back into herself. "I should keep meditating, though, or the brine shrimp will get it. They shouldn't stay here anyway—glass tank, bad temper."

He wasn't going to let the self-deprecation pass him by this time. "You didn't hurt them when you were eight years old and you won't hurt them now."

"It's a nice sentiment, Beast Boy, but it's not a sentiment I can trust. I've had fourteen years of people… well. And less than two weeks of you all telling me that Azar and everyone else were wrong."

"When you were eight—"

"I can't trust those memories," she interrupted. "They're…" He thought that she would let the statement die as something too personal. She didn't. "It's like what I always hoped would be true. I know they're real, and I wish I could remember them better, but I can't help feeling that you'll all expect me to be a better person."

"That's what friends do, Rae, but not in the way you're thinking. We want you to get better and better until you can finally stop doubting yourself, then get even better than that. We aren't going to expect you to ditch the poker face or to start wearing pink. You wouldn't be _Raven _if you changed all that. I mean, unless you want to."

"I don't," Raven said so quietly that he flicked an ear to catch the timbre of her voice. "I just feel like I'll lose a popularity contest to myself."

This was going to be important and he'd not come at all prepared for that possibility. "Well, no one can just pick you up anymore, except maybe Cy, and I think he'd feel a bit awkward about it."

Raven blinked in response.

"I think all of us are hoping we can sneak into your personal space again when you're okay with it. But it's not a contest with mini-you. It's the part where we saw you happy and it was awesome and we want to see that all the time. And you were really, really cute. Like a tiger kitten. We could still see _you _but we could see where it was that all of the you-ness came from. Tigers end up all graceful but start out falling all over themselves and… yeah." He drew in a deep breath and took the risk of getting an honest answer. "Do you like animal-me better? Animals-me, I suppose, but… less with the chattering at you, way better at not knocking your stuff over, way better at reading when you need space."

"Beast Boy, what are you talking about?"

"Which way do you like me? Simple question, Raven."

The scowl directed his way was truly impressive. He still held his ground. "If I didn't like having you talk, you wouldn't be here," Raven said with quite a bit of menace considering that she was admitting she liked having him talk. "Don't ask silly questions."

"It's silly to prefer animals-me or human-me?"

"There's a difference. Beyond the part where I like both of you. Eight-year-old-me isn't going to come back."

The muted sorrow in his eyes convinced him to take one more risk. He took the few steps forward he needed to take her hand. "You're our friend, Raven. You're _my _friend. Whatever size you happen to be, whether you're smiling or not, even when you wish all of us would go to Siberia to give you a break. You're stuck with us. We'd come back from Siberia after we sent you postcards."

"When did you grow up?" There wasn't any bite to her words, no needless wonder. There was a tiny hint of a smile. "You win this time."

"Would it be completely childish if I did a victory dance? Because I think this is the first time I've won against you. Ever."

"Yeah, well, don't get used to it." The hint of a smile developed into a miniature version of the full expression. "The rest of the Titans plus Jinx just got back into the Tower. Maybe you can save the victory dance for another time."

Raven should have known that Beast boy wouldn't just settle for a smile anymore. Instead of feeling at all intimidated, she felt only reflections of her contented happiness when she hugged him from her seat on the bed. They walked down to dinner together, to-go pizza with toppings that Raven liked as a child on half, her more adult tastes on the other half. It didn't surprise her as much as she expected that Jinx shared her current taste in pizza toppings as well as in literature.

The news about Slade's whereabouts came in during dinner. Robin checked a message on his communicator to find a bizarre news notice from the Gotham City Police Department. It took several seconds for him to skim carefully through a medical report before he realized just what she had done.

Raven had teleported Slade all the way to Times Square in the burst of magic that accompanied her transition back into an adult. About one hour later, an anonymous and one-eyed John Doe was checked into a hospital with a black eye, several deep bruises, and a few broken bones. The accompanying police note filled in what the doctors didn't know; one Mr. Slade Wilson was known to have messed with Batman's protege when in Jump City and out of Batman's reach. There was very little talk of investigating the vigilante who may well have found Mr. Wilson rendered unconscious and acted as a good Samaritan to get him medical care. No Titan was at all upset over the news. Raven wouldn't be either.

She left the rest of the Teen Titans to clean up after dinner. She (correctly) guessed that they wouldn't hear of her doing chores after a meal that had been dedicated to welcoming her back home. Maybe the circumstances had been drastic, and maybe she should have realized before, but now she knew for sure that she had a family. That wasn't at all the ending she had expected to the sixteenth birthday that could have ended the world. She wouldn't trade them for anything—not even for her mother.

She could barely watch the search engine's results load onto the screen of the common room's new computer. She had been avoiding the possibility for too long and maybe, just maybe, it could work out just as well as she had hoped.

The fourth result for "Angela Roth Gotham City" was a months-old report about the sixteenth anniversary of Angela Marie Roth's disappearance from her well-to-do apartment near the very heart of Manhattan. The article's ending included a phone number for Diogenes and Diana Roth and the repeated assertion that they welcomed all information about their daughter. Even her newfound assurance that she was welcome with her Titan family wasn't enough for her to pick up a phone and dial in that number.

Instead, she opened up an e-mail and slowly began to type a message to her grandparents. The Teen Titans were her family, now, and they always would be. That didn't mean that she couldn't reach out to someone else. She could take the shot in the dark and hope that they would write back or take her up on her offer of a phone call. Until then… Raven clicked 'send,' exhaled, and went back to rejoin the best friends anyone could ask to have.


End file.
